HOPES that North-East patients would be the first in the UK to benefit from a cancer breakthrough have been dashed.

After five years, a major drug trial involving ovarian cancer patients has ended in failure.

The so-called International Smart trial (Study of Monoclonal Antibody Radio Immunotheray) began with a fanfare in 1999 with a Press conference at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, in Gateshead. Journalists were introduced to a 74-year-old woman who was the first Briton to benefit from new immunotherapy treatment for ovarian cancer.

Nine months after her treatment at the world-renowned Northern Gynaecological Oncology Centre at the Gateshead hospital she was said to be feeling fine.

At that stage, three North-East women had been recruited for the trial and another seven were being sought.

In 1999, Tito Lopes, the consultant gynaecological oncologist in charge of the programme, said that early evidence suggested that the treatment appeared to prolong the lives of patients with ovarian cancer.

Yesterday, Mr Lopes confirmed that the trial had ended. "It was called off after it became clear that there was no difference between patients on the trial and those in the control group," said Mr Lopes.

He said the failure of the prolonged trial was "very disappointing". But he stressed that more cancer drugs were coming on the market or being tested and survival rates for most cancers were improving.

The idea behind the Smart trial was to harness the body's own immune system to deliver lethal radiation to cancerous cells, with only minor side-effects.

Earlier this year the pharmaceutical companies funding the Smart trials, Roche and Antisoma, announced that it was "unlikely" that the experimental treatment would continue.

In a statement the companies said: "The outcomes for R1549-treated patients appeared no better than those of patients in the comparative arm of the trial."