Experimental Drug Trial Makes Significant Breakthrough in Cancer Treatment

The result of a new drug trial might be a massive breakthrough in medical research equipped with the power to transform healthcare in the coming years. A small-scale drug trial conducted in the United States found that all the patients treated with this drug had their cancer go into remission.

The researchers from New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Cancer Center treated 12 rectal cancer patients with an experimental drug called dostarlimab. This immunotherapy drug was used in the treatment of endometrial cancer and proved to be effective against rectal cancer tumors.

The research paper was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and described that all 12 patients with rectal cancer saw their cancer disappear on treatment with dostarlimab. The drug was administered every three weeks for six months, to be followed by standard treatments of chemotherapy and surgery.

The patients who took dostarlimab showed no evidence of tumor, and their cancers were cleared with the drug administration alone, without having to undergo standard treatments of chemotherapy and surgery.

After completing the treatment, all 12 patients with six months of follow-up showed a clinical complete response, with no evidence of tumor on the MRI scans, PET scans, endoscopies, biopsy, and other tests.

A First in the History of Cancer Treatment

The successful cancer remission has been hailed as a first in cancer treatment, and one of the paper’s authors, Dr. Luis Diaz Jr. of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center remarked, “I believe this is the first time this has happened in the history of cancer”.

So far, cancer remission has only been seen in a limited number of patients with a specific genetic mutation in their tumors, called ‘mismatch repair deficiency’ (MMRd). Dr. Diaz explained that patients with MMRd tend to respond poorly to the standard chemotherapy and radiation procedures but MMRd mutations make cancerous cells vulnerable to immunotherapy.

The center revealed that the research is ongoing and only its preliminary results have been reported so far. The 12 patients have completed the treatment, after which they had six months of follow-ups. They may experience mild to moderate side effects but none of them had a recurrence of cancer.

Need for More Research

Ultimately, this drug trial is expected to include 30 patients as more research is needed to know how safe and effective dostarlimab is in treating patients with rectal cancer.

Oncologist Hanna K. Sanoff from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hills stated that “very little is known about the duration of time needed to find out whether a clinical complete response to dostarlimab equates to cure”.

She explained the need for large-scale replication of the results to be certain of the drug’s efficiency, which has only been seen in a few patients with MMRd tumors.

“Whether the results of this small study conducted at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center will be generalizable to a broader population of patients with rectal cancer is also not known,” she admitted.

“It’s early days, and there’s still a lot we don’t know, but if further research can replicate the bright promise hinted at here, we might be witnessing the development of a new kind of cancer therapy,” Dr. Sanoff acknowledged.

The clinical drug trial continues to enroll patients to test the drug’s efficacy for curing cancer. Moreover, researchers are also investigating if the same method can cure other cancers of the stomach, prostate, and pancreas.



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