A woman with advanced breast cancer has been “cured” by an injection harvested from her own immune system in what scientists have described as an “extremely promising” world first. Judy Perkins, a 52-year-old mother of two, was given months to live after seven types of chemotherapy failed and she had developed tumours the size of fists in her liver. She had undergone a mastectomy in 2003 after the cancer was first diagnosed, but it returned in 2013 and spread aggressively. There is no known cure for breast cancer patients whose disease has spread so widely. But Ms Perkins, an engineer from Florida, has now been completely cancer free for two years and leads an active life including 40-mile hikes and kayaking.<doc-sep>A woman has been completely cured of breast cancer after doctors tweaked her immune system, enabling it to destroy the tumours that had spread through her body. The treatment, which succeeded after all other conventional treatments had failed, marks the first successful application of T-cell immunotherapy for late-stage breast cancer. While the technique is still in its early days, scientists have welcomed its potential as a future treatment for cancers that have resisted all other forms of therapy. Judy Perkins, a 49-year-old engineer from Florida, was selected to undergo the cutting edge treatment after several chemotherapy sessions had failed to kill the tumour, which had begun to spread to her liver. Before the new treatment, doctors had given her three years to live. She was treated by a team led by Dr Steven Rosenberg at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Maryland. The clinical trial, which is still ongoing, used modified T-cells – which make up part the body’s immune response – to tackle the patient’s tumours. Doctors caring for Ms Perkins during her recovery described her return to health as "remarkable". She has now been entirely free of cancer for two years. Immunotherapy, which involves stimulating the body’s natural defences to fight cancer, is already being used to tackle certain cancers, and some forms are already available on the NHS. However, the response rate to even the most successful treatments is relatively low, with one recently trialled therapy showing strong effects in only around 10 per cent of prostate cancer patients. Previous clinical trials using immunotherapy to treat breast cancer have proved largely ineffective. The new approach pioneered by Dr Rosenberg and his team was based on an existing technique called adoptive cell transfer that has proved effective when treating melanoma, but not other forms of the disease. 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A terminal cancer patient given months to live after seven types of chemotherapy failed has been 'cured' by a 'miracle' injection. Judy Perkins is the first woman in the world to have her breast cancer completely eradicated using a pioneering technique to turbo charge her immune system. Experts believe the 52-year-old’s case could offer a blueprint to help the body’s natural defences eradicate other cancers. The mother-of-two had tumours the size of plums in her liver after cancer spread throughout her body but a few months later they had vanished. Judy said: “I had a tumour pressing on a nerve which meant I spent my time trying not to move at all to avoid pain shooting down my arm. I had given up fighting. “I had resigned my job and was planning on dying. I couldn’t do anything which I had enjoyed before and I didn’t want it to continue. “I wanted to get dying over with. I had a bucket list of things I needed to do before the end, like going to the Grand Canyon. “But within two weeks I could feel the tumours in my chest wall shrinking and I started to feel better. Now I have gone back to normal everyday life. “The doctors were beaming at the results. They were practically tap dancing with happiness.” The case has been discussed by experts at the world’s biggest cancer conference in Chicago and published in the journal Nature Medicine. Scientists led by the National Cancer Institute in the US analysed a biopsy of Judy’s tumour. They worked out a way to identify the 23% of her white blood cells able to attack her particular cancer. A small number of the T-cells were removed and grown in their billions and re-injected to beef up her immune system. Called adoptive cell transfer, it is the first time it has been used to wipe out breast cancer and could be available to more patients in five years. Author Dr Steven Rosenberg said: “This patient came to us in a desperate situation with every treatment having failed. “The breakthrough here is in finding an approach able to identify the T-cells which target genetic mutations and in being able to grow them to this number.” Speaking at the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Dr Michael Sabel, chief of surgical oncology at the University of Michigan, said: “This represents a paradigm shift. “We have been struggling in getting the immune system to recognise cancer for many years, especially for some types of cancer." He added: “This lays out a pathway and you could apply this to many different types of tumour. "That’s what’s very exciting.” Judy was first diagnosed with breast cancer in the lining of her ducts in 2003 and had a mastectomy then, before the cancer returned a decade later. She went through seven types of chemotherapy and another experimental drug trial before running out of options. In December 2015, she found out the cancer had spread to her liver, as well as lymph nodes in her chest wall and abdomen. Judy’s lesions had completely disappeared within a year of treatment. Judy, an engineer from Florida, who has since taken up kayaking and mountain climbing, added: "I was hoping to see my sons graduate from high school and I thought about missing out on their weddings and grandchildren. "I knew they would be okay, but I was planning how to die with dignity and how to show them it wasn't scary." She added: "It feels miraculous and I'm beyond amazed that I have now been free of cancer for two years. “Experts may call it extended remission but I call it a cure.” Dr Simon Vincent, director at Breast Cancer Now, said: “This is a remarkable and extremely promising result, but we need to see this effect repeated in other patients before giving hope of a new immunotherapy for incurable metastatic breast cancer. “This is a hugely exciting first in the treatment of advanced breast cancer. "But it has only been shown to work in a single patient and we now need larger trials to investigate."