A modest pharmacological trial undertaken in the United States has revealed that every patient treated in the experiment had their cancer successfully go into remission.
This appears to be a very hopeful advance for the treatment of rectal cancer.
“I believe this is the first time this has happened in the history of cancer,”
Medical oncologist Luis Diaz Jr. from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the senior author reporting the results, told The New York Times.
The drug used in the trial is called (dostarlimab) and is offered under the brand name (Jemperli).
It is an immunotherapy drug used to treat endometrial cancer, but this was the first clinical trial to see if it might also be used to treat rectal cancer tumours.
The research team claims that the successful cancer remission witnessed in every patient may be unprecedented for a cancer medication intervention.
It’s worth mentioning that the groundbreaking outcomes have only been reported in 12 individuals so far.
The experiment is still ongoing. All 12 of whom had cancers with genetic alterations known as mismatch repair deficiency (MMRd). MMRd is found in about 5%–10% of rectal cancer patients.
Patients with these tumours are less sensitive to chemotherapy and radiation therapies, necessitating surgical excision of the tumours.
The rectal cancer patients involved faced previous treatments, such as chemotherapy, radiation and invasive surgery that could result in bowel, urinary, and even sexual dysfunction.
Dostarlimab is the most recent cancer treatment to make headlines in the oncology field.
In May, a group of American doctors revealed their own remarkable discovery, which could indicate that we are on our approach to finding a cure.
A novel genetically modified cancer-killing virus was introduced into the first human patient.
The medicine, Vaxinia, has previously shown to be effective in animal trials, therefore scientists and medical researchers are optimistic about the human findings.
In animal experiments, the Oncolytic virus has been shown to decrease tumours in colon, lung, breast, ovarian, and pancreatic cancers.
