Treatment hope for aggressive cancer

However experts have warned that the treatment is still at an early experimental stage.

On average, people with a cancer of the immune system known as mantle cell lymphoma only live for 36-60 months after being diagnosed with the disease.

But the new treatment - called high dose radioimmunotherapy - has produced very impressive results.

Patients who took the treatment are now in long-term remission.

Researchers from Germany tested the treatment on 12 patients who had relapsed following high-dose chemotherapy for the disease, which is a form of Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Seven out of eight patients who received high dose radioimmunotherapy went into complete remission.

However, a low dose version of the same treatment had the same effect for only one out of four people who took it.

Combination approach

Radioimmunotherapy combines traditional-style radiation therapy with a new breed of drugs that specifically target cancer cells.

Not only is it an effective way to treat cancer, it often does so without the nasty side effects often associated with other forms of treatment.

Nicola Selstead, special projects manager at the UK Lymphoma Association, welcomed the research.

She told BBC News Online: "The concept is really exciting, this could be an important new treatment.

"However, the research was only carried out on 12 patients and there is an extremely long way to go. At this stage we cannot draw many conclusions from this."

Ms Selstead said further work was needed to ascertain whether the treatment could be more effective if used in tandem with chemotherapy, or with a transplant.

Her comments were echoed by the leading charity Cancer Research UK.

A spokesman said: "High-dose radioimmunotherapy has shown considerable promise in previous trials to treat people with mantle cell lymphoma, so we have reason to be optimistic about its general development.

"However, the number of people involved in this particular study is so small, it is necessary to view these specific findings with some caution."

The research was presented at a meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine.