A NEW TREATMENT has been made available on the NHS that could transform the outlook for people living with advanced bladder cancer, offering hope where options have long been limited. More than a thousand patients in England each year are now eligible for the therapy, which has demonstrated a remarkable improvement in both survival and remission rates.
The treatment combines two medicines, enfortumab vedotin and pembrolizumab, which work together in a complementary way. Enfortumab vedotin precisely targets and destroys bladder cancer cells, while pembrolizumab harnesses the immune system to track down and eliminate any remaining disease. The drugs are delivered intravenously to patients whose cancer has spread or cannot be removed surgically.
Until now, chemotherapy has been the mainstay for this group of patients, but results have often been disappointing. Those with metastatic bladder cancer typically live for just over a year after diagnosis. Clinical trial evidence, however, shows that the new combination extends life by an average of a year compared with chemotherapy alone, with survival rising from around 18 months to over 30 months.
The benefit is not only measured in longevity, the time patients lived without their disease worsening increased from just over six months to roughly a year and a half. In addition, almost one in three people had no detectable signs of cancer after treatment, a rate more than double that achieved with chemotherapy.
Another advantage is that patients generally tolerated the therapy better, experiencing fewer harmful side effects thanks to the drugs’ precision in targeting cancer cells rather than healthy tissue.
Specialists have described the approval as one of the most promising developments in decades for bladder cancer care, bringing genuine optimism to patients facing an aggressive and difficult-to-treat disease.
Reference
NHS England. News. New hope for bladder cancer patients as breakthrough treatment doubles survival. Available at: https://www.england.nhs.uk/2025/08/new-hope-for-bladder-cancer-patients-as-breakthrough-treatment-doubles-survival/. Last accessed: 22 August 2025.
