Your donations continue to drive research at The Royal Marsden, advancing cancer treatment for patients today and into the future.
We’re making research breakthroughs happen to revolutionise treatment and care for people with cancer around the world. Our work is made possible thanks to your generosity - here are five examples of the progress we’re making right now with your help.
1. Radiotherapy offers prostate cancer patients fewer side effects than surgery
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men in the UK. For many patients with localised prostate cancer, surgery is often the standard treatment. However, recent results from a trial led by The Royal Marsden and the Institute of Cancer Research, London (ICR) suggest patients could benefit from radiotherapy as an alternative to surgery.
Results from the PACE-A trial revealed that over 94% of patients showed no signs of their cancer returning or cancer progression after five years. After eight years, the results showed 91% of patients receiving stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR, also known as SBRT) remained cancer-free.
During the PACE-A trial, the Cyberknife, a state-of-the-art radiotherapy machine, was used to deliver SABR to patients. The Charity helped to fund the CyberKnife, which allows clinicians to target tumours with greater precision. This results in less damage to the surrounding tissue, which can reduce the side effects patients experience, such as incontinence or issues with sexual intimacy.
"Now, these results show that SBRT appears to achieve comparable long-term cancer control to surgery, helping patients make more informed decisions about their care," says Professor Nicholas van As, Consultant Clinical Oncologist at The Royal Marsden and Chief Investigator of the PACE-A trial.
PACE is an umbrella of trials supported by funding from The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity. The PACE-A trial was funded by Accuray and Varian and sponsored by The Royal Marsden.
2. Harnessing patient immune responses to improve melanoma treatment
Nearly a third of patients with advanced melanoma saw their tumours completely disappear after receiving a combination of pembrolizumab and lifileucel on the IOV-COM-202 trial. In addition, almost two thirds of these patients receiving the combination treatment saw their tumours shrink substantially with long-lasting improvements.
Immunotherapy is a type of cancer treatment which uses the body’s own immune system to target and destroy cancer.
Pembrolizumab is an immunotherapy drug which blocks the regulation of immune cells, helping to better detect and attack cancer. Pembrolizumab is a proven first-line treatment for patients with advanced melanoma. However, many patients stop responding to pembrolizumab.
In 2024, lifileucel became the first cellular therapy approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for solid tumours. Lifileucel is a type of immunotherapy called tumour-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy which modifies the patient's own immune cells from their tumour to help their immune response target their specific cancer more effectively.
Results from the trial suggest introducing lifileucel earlier, alongside pembrolizumab, could improve how patients with advanced melanoma respond to treatment, offering them a better quality of life. These latest results can help to support further research for melanoma patients using lifileucel, such as the TILVALANCE-301 trial.
"Larger studies will now help us understand which patients are most likely to benefit from this combination and how it can be best used alongside existing immunotherapies," says Dr Andrew Furness, Consultant Medical Oncologist and Solid Tumour Cellular Therapy Lead at The Royal Marsden.
"It's amazing that your own cells can be used in this way to heal you. You can't help but feel grateful to have the chance to have something like TIL therapy. I don't know where I'd be without it."
The IOV-COM-202 study is funded by Iovance Biotherapeutics, Inc. Solid tumour cell therapy research like this trial at The Royal Marsden is supported by The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre, The Institute of Cancer Research, London (ICR) and our incredible supporters including a generous donation from Nationwide.
3. Revolutionising standard treatment to slow advanced lung cancer growth
For people with advanced lung cancer, adding radiotherapy to their standard treatment could help to slow down how quickly their disease progresses. By keeping their cancer diagnosis stable, this research could help to give patients more time with loved ones.
Oligometastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is a type of lung cancer which has spread to other sites in the body by the time the patient is diagnosed. Standard treatment for these patients currently involves a whole-body (systemic) approach with either chemotherapy, immunotherapy, or a combination of these treatments.
The SARON trial selected 140 patients from across 19 centres in the UK. The research aimed to better understand if adding high-dose radiotherapy to standard treatment could help to prevent cancer from progressing in this group of patients. Results showed the participants lived 56% longer (equivalent to five months) without their disease progressing when receiving radiotherapy in addition to standard treatment.
Dr Fiona McDonald, Chief Investigator of the SARON trial and Consultant Thoracic Clinical Oncologist at The Royal Marsden, says: "The SARON trial has provided important data, demonstrating a significant improvement in progression-free survival without compromising quality of life. It is an exemplar of national collaboration, and these types of studies are crucial for informing personalised treatment approaches for patients."
Patient Julie was referred to The Royal Marsden after experiencing symptoms of long COVID which led to her diagnosis of NSCLC in 2020. At The Royal Marsden, Julie was enrolled onto the SARON trial.
"The staff at The Royal Marsden were superb and they made sure I knew what my options were and exactly what to expect," says Julie. "The treatment worked remarkably well and, six years later, I'm still stable. I was able to return to work and, now I'm retired, I get to spend lots more time with my grandchildren and great-grandchild."
"The treatment worked remarkably well and, six years later, I'm still stable."
The SARON trial was funded by Cancer Research UK and sponsored by University College London (UCL). Thanks to your generosity, The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity funded the CyberKnife radiotherapy equipment used to deliver treatment to some patients on the trial.
4. Offering hope to head and neck cancer patients with new treatment combination
Results from a global study involving The Royal Marsden showed an impressive 77% of patients with hard-to-treat head and neck cancer responded to a new combined treatment.
Researchers tested using a targeted therapy called amivantamab alongside the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab and chemotherapy.
Patients on the trial have a head and neck cancer that is unrelated to the human papilloma virus (HPV). This type of cancer can be hard to treat when it becomes recurrent or when the cancer moves from one part of the body to another through a process called metastasis.
The OrigAMI-4 clinical trial took place at 56 sites, including The Royal Marsden, across 11 countries to test using amivantamab on its own and in combination treatments. With your support, we help to fund staff roles at the hospital including a Research Nurse to select and support patients throughout the OrigAMI trial.
The findings from OrigAMI-4 have helped to take the research further into the next stages of the trial, the global OrigAMI-5 study. This study compares the combination of drugs with standard treatment in a wider cohort of patients.
"As a mum of three young children, being given another treatment option has meant everything to me. When I thought there was nothing else that could be done, the trial gave me hope."
5. Personalised treatment to build a fuller picture of cancer for patient care
The Royal Marsden has opened a new Centre for Cancer Genomics to develop better ways of diagnosing cancer, tailoring treatments to individual patients and improving access to clinical trials across the UK.
The Centre is the first NHS facility specifically designed to develop and deliver a new generation of cancer tests called composite biomarker testing. This combines different types of information about a patient and their cancer using machine learning.
The Centre will also expand liquid biopsy testing which uses a patient blood sample to detect circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA). These traces of genetic material from cancer cells can be spotted sooner and more accurately to help clinicians tailor more effective, personalised treatment. This type of testing also helps to reduce patient side effects compared to a more invasive traditional tissue biopsy.
"This new centre will make personalised treatment an option for more patients," says Dr Angela George, Clinical Director of Genomics at The Royal Marsden.
"We'll be able to deliver more tests and look at new drug targets, which hasn’t been possible before. We'll also be able to trial new technology and identify patients who can safely have breaks in their treatments to improve their wellbeing and quality of life.”
The Centre for Cancer Genomics at The Royal Marsden was made possible with Charity funding, alongside a grant from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).
Your support is life-saving
Your donations help us to continue supporting world-leading research at The Royal Marsden to develop new, better treatments for patients.
Find out how to support our work today.