The New England Journal of Medicine has documented positive results in two clinical Phase III tests of the new myelona drug Revlimid.

Overall survival rates as well as response rates were shown to be dramatically higher among people taking the drug in the randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies.

The median amount of time until the disease progressed for patients on Revlimid was 11.3 months, more than double the 4.7 months recorded for patients taking dexamethasone plus placebo. Response rates were also dramatically improved, being recorded in 60.2 per cent of Revlimid patients as compared with just 24 per cent of the placebo group.

Myelona is the second most common form of blood cancer and it causes about 2,500 deaths annually. The disease leads to an overproduction of malignant plasma cells in the bone marrow and has a 45 per cent mortality rate in the first year of infection.

Commenting on the trials, leading myelona specialist Kwee Yong of UCL said: "The data from the two published clinical trials show that Revlimid represents a major step forward in helping myeloma become a disease that some people can live with rather than die from."

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