A small drug trial is having a seismic impact in the world of oncology: After six months of an experimental treatment, tumors vanished in all 14 patients diagnosed with early stage rectal cancer who completed the study by the time it was published.
Researchers in the field of colorectal cancer are hailing the study, published Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine, as a groundbreaking development that could lead to new treatments for other cancers as well.
“I don’t think anyone has seen this before, where every single patient has had the tumor disappear,” said Andrea Cercek, an oncologist with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and lead author of the study.
The patients all shared the same genetic instability in their rectal cancer and had not yet undergone treatment. Each was given nine doses of intravenous dostarlimab, a relatively new drug designed to block a specific cancer cell protein that, when expressed, can cause the immune system to withhold its cancer-fighting response.
After six months, scans that once showed knotty, discolored tumors instead revealed smooth, pink tissue. No traces of cancer were detected in scans, biopsies or physical exams.
“All 14 patients? The odds are exceedingly low and really unheard of in oncology,” Cercek said.
The results were so successful that none of the 14 patients who completed the trial needed the planned follow-up treatment of chemo-radiation or surgery, nor did any have significant complications from the drug. Four other patients in the trial are still undergoing treatment but thus far are showing the same promising results.
Sascha Roth, the first patient to enter the experimental study in late 2019, knows firsthand how big a deal the results are, but said that since the news was released Sunday, she and her family are beginning to understand the broader impact.
