Lives are being saved in Melbourne in a world-first trial of a potentially revolutionary cancer drug that comes in the form of a single tablet.
Some patients with an advanced form of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL), the most common type of leukaemia affecting about 1000 Australians each year, have been given a new lease on life with the invention of the new anti-cancer drug, venetoclax.
The drug has been in the works for five years.
Three Victorian centres - The Royal Melbourne Hospital, the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute - began phase-one trials of it with severely ill patients in 2011.
There are 116 patients trialling the pill, which they take daily.
Professor Andrew Roberts, a haematologist at The Royal Melbourne Hospital, says 79 per cent of participants had promising responses to the drug.
One of those is Rod Jacobs, 63, who credits it with saving his life.
He was diagnosed with CLL in 2009 and given chemotherapy, but the cancer returned in 2012.
Mr Jacobs was accepted into the trial in 2013 and today not even the most sensitive medical test can detect cancer his blood.
"The results were fantastic - my quality of life has improved immensely," Mr Jacobs told reporters in Melbourne on Thursday.
"I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for this drug."
Professor Roberts says 20 per cent of the trial participants achieved complete remission.
"This is a very exciting result for a group of people who often had no other treatment options available," he told reporters.
Professor John Seymour, chair of the haematology service at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, said the new drug not only worked quickly, but had significantly milder side-effects than conventional treatments.
Unlike chemotherapy patients, trial patients felt only mild nausea.
However, as these results came from the first trial involving humans, it could take years until the drug is available to the public.
Professor Roberts said when it did become available, severely ill patients would be the first to use it.
"There are other new drugs, other options - not everyone with CLL needs this drug," he said.
Phase two and three trials are testing venetoclax across a range of blood cancers globally, including in Australia.
