A NEW type of drug is offering fresh hope to Dorset patients with bowel cancer whose tumours have become resistant to conventional treatment.

In the UK, more than 35,000 new cases of bowel (or colorectal) cancer are diagnosed each year, making it the third most common cancer in men and the second in women.

Although the disease is curable if diagnosed and treated in time, around 30 per cent of patients already have advanced cancer by the time they go to the doctor.

At the moment, the disease claims 45 lives a day in this country.

For patients whose bowel cancer has spread to other organs, options have so far been mostly limited to controlling symptoms.

But now Erbitux, manufactured by Merck, has joined the armoury used by doctors at the Dorset Cancer Centre in Poole Hospital.

The drug - the first of its kind in this country - works by blocking a growth factor involved in cancer development, shrinking tumours and delaying the progression of the disease.

Erbitux is a monoclonal antibody designed to attack cancer cells, unlike chemotherapy, which also attacks healthy cells.

For that reason, it does not have the same side-effects as traditional cancer treatment.

Dr Richard Osborn, a consultant medical oncologist at the cancer centre, stressed that the drug is not a cure and does not work for everyone.

"If you have people with advanced colon cancer, a proportion will have shrinkage of their cancer when treated with the new drug.

"The benefits seem to be greater if it is used in conjunction with a standard chemotherapy drug called irinotecan," he explained.

"The important thing to recognise is that it's not a treatment suitable for every patient, nor one that would be the first line for advanced bowel cancer."

He added: "In the group who benefit, which is a minority, the benefit usually lapses within a few months. It's not a treatment makes the cancer go away for years."

One 66-year-old Dorset patient who began combination therapy in January said he felt "fantastic" on the new treatment after experiencing unpleasant side-effects from his previous chemotherapy regime.

He had first noticed symptoms about three years ago and had a tumour removed by surgery, but some cancer cells had spread to his liver.

"At the beginning of the year he had advanced colon cancer and had exhausted the benefits of all the standard treatments. As a result of treatment with Erbitux, there's no question the cancer was usefully controlled," said Dr Osborn.

Further investigations are now taking place to find out whether Erbitux could be a first-line treatment for advanced bowel cancer that has spread to other organs. Initial results seem promising. The drug is also being looked at as a possible treatment for other forms of cancer.

The Dorset Cancer Centre has taken part in international trials of Erbitux, which is not yet licensed. So far it has been used on only a handful of patients. It will not be widely available until it has been assessed and approved by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence.

"There's quite decent experimental evidence for its use. The trouble is, in this country, there's always a lag between evidence becoming available and approval," said Dr Osborn.

Fact file

More than 35,000 cases of bowel cance are diagnosed in the UK each year;

Famous victims have included England and West Ham football legend Bobby Moore and late 1960s athletics "golden girl" Lillian Board, who died at 22.

Nine out of 10 of those diagnosed are over 50;

The five-year survival rate for patients with advanced bowel cancer is less than five per cent;

Treatment options can include surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy;

Fewer than one in 10 cases are due to an inherited gene defect;

Risk factors include a diet high in red meat and low in vegetables and fibre, being overweight. Smoking and alcohol may increase risk and moderate exercise may help prevent bowel cancer;

Contact your doctor if you have any of the following symptoms lasting more than two weeks - blood or mucus in your poo; changes in bowel habits; feeling you still need to go to the toilet even after emptying your bowels; pain or discomfort in the stomach area; unexplained weight loss; extreme tiredness; a lump in the belly.

Useful websites include www.cancerresearchuk.org, www.coloncancer.org.uk, www. beatingbowelcancer.org