Hopes for a new treatment for a devastating childhood cancer have been boosted by successful research at a British university.
Laboratory trials at Southampton University suggest that three antibody based treatments could successfully trigger the immune system to fight neuroblastoma.
Researchers are testing three monoclonal antibodies, each designed to stimulate a different molecule in the immune system.
The study showed the treatment could work in up to 60% of cases.
There was further success when an antibody was combined with a cancer vaccine called Survivin.
The researchers are hoping to develop treatments for the 40% of children with the disease who cannot be helped with conventional chemotherapy.
The research has been reported in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.
Research Dr Juliet Gray said there would be problems in finding a way to test the treatment on children.
She said: "Although this work is still at a pre-clinical stage, we hope it has enabled us to identify a way that we can provide effective immunotherapy treatment against neuroblastoma.
"More research is needed to understand how these antibodies work and how they should be used to treat neuroblastoma."
She added: "It is important that we learn as much as we can in the lab, in advance of a clinical trial, about how this type of therapy can be best used in childhood cancers."
Immunomodulatory Monoclonal Antibodies Combined with Peptide Vaccination Provide Potent Immunotherapy in an Aggressive Murine Neuroblastoma Model Clinical Cancer Research July 2013 [abstract]
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