A medical trial for a treatment of a specific type of cancer, received an unprecedented 100% success rate, with all participating patients in remission, according to newly published research.
The trial, performed at New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, was related to rectal cancer with a particular rare mutation. Results were published Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The small trial had12 patients, with the specific cancer in its early stages. It involved using immunotherapy to treat the cancer locally, before it spread to other tissues, and without chemoradiotherapy and surgery.
The rectal cancer disappeared after immunotherapy in every one of the trial’s cases, without the need for radiation, surgery, or chemotherapy treatments. As of the publication, the cancer had not returned in any of the patients, who have been cancer-free for up to two years.
“It’s incredibly rewarding,” said medical oncologist and researcher Dr. Andrea Cercek, in a post on the cancer center’s website.
“To get these happy tears and happy emails from the patients in this study who finish treatment and realize, ‘Oh my God, I get to keep all my normal body functions that I feared I might lose to radiation or surgery.'”
Very proud of our study published in @NEJM. 100% clinical complete response with dostarlimab alone in mismatch repair-deficient locally advanced #RectalCancer. No radiation or surgery! @ASCO #ASCO22 @MSKCancerCenter https://t.co/sZypoHBtj7
— Andrea Cercek (@AndreaCercek) June 5, 2022
Between 5% and 10% of all rectal cancer patients are thought to have mismatch repair-deficient tumors, including all the patients in the Memorial Sloan Kettering clinical trial, according to the cancer center.
Some 45,000 Americans are diagnosed with rectal cancer each year.
“An MMRd tumor develops a defect in its ability to repair certain types of mutations that occur in cells. When those mutations accumulate in the tumor, they stimulate the immune system, which attacks the mutation-ridden cancer cells,” the trial’s co-chair, Dr. Luis Diaz, wrote on the cancer center’s website.
Patients were given the checkpoint inhibitor dostarlimab through an IV every three weeks for six months, while the tumors were closely tracked.
“The most exciting part of this is that every single one of our patients has only needed immunotherapy. We haven’t radiated anybody, and we haven’t put anybody through surgery,” Cercek wrote.
“They have preserved normal bowel function, bladder function, sexual function, fertility. Women have their uterus and ovaries. It’s remarkable.”
Though early, the trial’s results offer hope for eventually being able to treat other forms of cancer.
“We are investigating if this same method may help other cancers where the treatments are often life-altering and tumors can be MMRd. We are currently enrolling patients with gastric, prostate, and pancreatic cancers,” wrote Diaz, calling the results “the tip of the iceberg.”
by: Simon Druker
posted on: UPI