While researchers hope this treatment will become available on the NHS in the coming years, experts stress it will not benefit everyone with bowel cancer.
Elise Sargent, 45, from Rowlands Castle near Portsmouth, has stage four bowel cancer with a genetic mutation that does not respond to immunotherapy.
“Every time I hear a patient has been successfully treated with immunotherapy my heart just leaps,” she said.
“I am so pleased that there has been these advances but unfortunately nothing has been found that would treat my genetic mutation and there are many other genetic mutations out there that immunotherapy just won’t touch.
“I live in hope that more drugs will come on the market that will help people like me.”
Elise was diagnosed before she was eligible for routine bowel cancer screening – something she believes urgently needs to change.
“I would like to see the FIT test (Faecal Immunochemical Test) which is essentially a test for blood in your poo sent out to people as soon as they hit 40,” she said.
“At the moment it’s 50, recently lowered from 55.
“But we are seeing such a huge surge in bowel cancer in younger people that I think it’s vital that we start testing at 40 now because it would catch so many people before they enter stage four, which is where I am in my cancer journey.”
