(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Results from a small cancer trial left every one of 18 patients in remission, an amazing result that holds incredible future potential if the trial can be replicated on large scale.
The trial is being praised as “unprecedented” and “remarkable,” according to the Daily Wire,
A paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine outlined a study of 18 rectal cancer patients who were given dostarlimab every three weeks or six months.
Every patient ended up cancer-free, including the first patient who started the trial two years ago.
“I believe this is the first time this has happened in the history of cancer,” said Dr. Luiz A Diaz Jr., who co-authored the paper.
Dr. Andrea Cercek, an oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and another co-author of the paper, described “a lot of happy tears” upon completion of the trial.
Colorectal cancer expert at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Kimmie Ng, noted that the study would need to be replicated before broader administration of the drug began, but also called the trial results “remarkable.”
“We initiated a prospective phase 2 study in which single-agent dostarlimab, an anti–PD-1 monoclonal antibody, was administered every 3 weeks for 6 months in patients with mismatch repair–deficient stage II or III rectal adenocarcinoma,” the study said. “This treatment was to be followed by standard chemoradiotherapy and surgery.”
The drug allows the immune system to identify and destroy cancer cells.
All of the patients “had a clinical complete response, with no evidence of tumor on magnetic resonance imaging,” the paper explained.
“At the time of this report, no patients had received chemoradiotherapy or undergone surgery, and no cases of progression or recurrence had been reported during follow-up (range, 6 to 25 months). No adverse events of grade 3 or higher have been reported.”
Quality of life measures have yet to be reported and measured, but doctors seem hopeful.
According to the study, many of the more difficult symptoms which accompany rectal cancer, such as pain and bleeding, were resolved with dostarlimab.
