Study finds HIV pill cures cervical cancer

By GATONYE GATHURA

A common pill used in treating HIV has been found to completely cure cervical cancer in three months, according to a study done at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH).

The revelation is a major medical breakthrough in the fight against cancer.

Researchers Dr Lynne and Dr Ian Hampson of Manchester University, UK and Dr Innocent Orora Maranga of KNH, put 40 cervical cancer patients on HIV drug lopinavir for two weeks. When tested for cancer after three months, more than 90 per cent of the patients were found to be free of the disease.

“Out of 23 women initially diagnosed with high-grade disease, 19 returned to normal and two had low-grade disease. Furthermore, the 17 women initially diagnosed with borderline or low-grade disease also showed similar improvement,” said a statement from Manchester University.

The findings, which were the subject of debate at the university yesterday, if true, are nothing but a miracle in the treatment of cervical cancer especially in poor countries.  Once diagnosed with the disease, the patient is put on one capsule of the antiviral drug twice a day for two weeks.

“For an early stage clinical trial, the results have exceeded our expectations. We have seen women with high-grade disease revert to a normal healthy cervix in a comparatively short period,” said Dr Hampson in the statement.

Prohibited

However, the study raises ethical issues as the country’s leading hospital might have allowed Kenyan women to be used as guinea pigs, exposing them to unknown dangers.

The UK researchers said the study could not be done in their country because the law is restrictive.

According to the UK researchers, they could not do the trials back home because of associated costs and red tape.However, the research is expected to help Britons make up their minds over a pending medical innovation Bill. “We have full ethical approval in Kenya and chose to conduct the trial there because of the extreme need for a self-applied treatment for cervical cancer.”

Medical treatment in the UK and even Kenya is based on what is called ‘standard procedure’, which demands that clinicians follow certain known and well-established rules and avoid experimentation with patients on products or practices that are not established.

To do so in the UK, the laws would have to be changed to allow doctors to innovate as they move along in treating a difficult case, and that is what the Medical Innovation Bill or the Saatchi Bill being discussed in the British legislature, is trying to achieve.

The Saatchi Bill is being sponsored by Lord Saatchi who lost his wife to cancer in 2011. Lord Saatchi is also financing the Kenya trials.

 “The fact that they needed to run their trial in Nairobi, and that even now there is no guarantee the treatment will be available in the UK any time soon, is a source of immense frustration,” said Lord Saatchi, a co-founder of the advertising and marketing firm Saatchi & Saatchi.

Lord Saatchi wants the law changed to encourage what he calls responsible innovation, a message he took to the blogs last week, asking the British public to vote in support of the proposed legislation.

But Price Slater Gawnes, a UK law firm which specialises in medical compensation, warned that the Bill if made law could have unintended and far more dangerous consequences.

“It appears that Lord Saatchi wants a situation where doctors don’t have to tell patients that the treatment is new and untested. That would render being a cancer patient as close to being a laboratory rat as a human being could get,” argued the law firm in a statement.

Huge difference

In an earlier study, the UK doctors had found that 18 per cent of cervical cancer patients in Kenya die within two years of diagnosis.

“Our figures predict that less than 20 per cent of those left will survive during the next two years. The late stage at which women get diagnosed, inaccurate assessments of the extent of the disease and long-waiting times for treatment are all significant factors in this huge difference in survival rates between Kenya and the UK.”

The university’s statement said permission for the study had been given by KNH. The hospital’s public communication office said yesterday that Dr Maranga would issue a statement later. The hospital is expected to address the issue in a press conference today.