A new drug treatment could help people with motor neurone disease to live longer.
Tests have found a protein usually given to kidney cancer patients can lead to a 70% reduction in the risk of dying.
Former rugby league star Rob Burrow, 40, is fighting the degenerative illness which last year claimed the life of his friend, rugby union legend Doddie Weir.
Timothy Tree, Professor of Immune Regulation and Immunotherapy at King’s College, London, said: “These remarkable results are a real breakthrough.
"They could lead to big changes in treatment options for patients living with this devastating disease.”
MND weakens the strength of most muscles in the body by affecting the motor neurons in the brain and death generally comes from respiratory failure.
The illness, which affects 6,000 people in the UK, claimed the life of former Scottish rugby international Doddie Weir, 52, who died in November after being diagnosed in 2016.
Most patients typically die within three to five years of diagnosis.
But Professor Stephen Hawking, who was given just two years to live when he was diagnosed aged 21, lived for another 55 years before his death in 2018.
The new treatment is made from a protein called Interleukin-2 (IL-2) which is already found in the body’s immune system.
More than 200 patients self injected themselves in the stomach for five days in every month throughout a 21 month trial, in England and France, which ended last year.
Medics think by continuing to treat the condition with Il-2, the disease can be slowed over a period of time.
Neurologist Professor Nigel Leigh of Brighton Medical School, who led the trial with Gilbert Bensimon and colleagues in France, said: “The initial data shows a very good response and we are very encouraged.
"We have been working hard for years to find new treatments for this awful illness.”
A spokesperson for the MND Association described the trial as an “important and ground breaking study.”
