What did the trial show?
The trial investigated two immunotherapy drugs which are designed to enhance the immune system and let it attack cancer.
There were 945 patients in the trial, a third were given nivolumab, a third were given ipilimumab and a third were given both.
Doctors then looked at the five-year survival rate – the proportion of patients still alive after five years.
The results showed:
26% were still alive on ipilimumab alone
44% were still alive on nivolumab alone
and 52% were still alive when given both.
“It’s been an amazing surprise to see so much progress in such a short a period of time,” Prof Larkin told BBC News.
He said: “It’s been the most extraordinary transformation from a disease that was regarded, among all the cancers as the most difficult to treat, the most serious prognosis.
He said there is now “the possibility that 50% of people with stage four melanoma are alive five years after having immunotherapy treatment.”
The findings have been presented at a meeting of the European Society for Medical Oncology and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Are these patients cured?
Saying cured is always difficult in cancer, but five-year-survival is a hugely significant milestone.
Some patients taking the drugs are in total remission with no sign of any abnormality on scans.
Others like Pam still have a tumour inside their bodies, but they are no longer growing.
Out of the patients that survived, three-quarters no longer need any form of cancer treatment.
.
