Jun 6, 2022 - Health

Trial of rectal cancer drug leads to remission in every patient

Tina Reed

Illustration of a blue ribbon with a downward-facing arrow. — Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

A small cancer immunotherapy drug trial in patients with rectal cancer recently had an "unheard of" result: Every single patient treated achieved complete remission.

Why it matters: Based on just 12 patients, the trial was published Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine and needs to be replicated in a much bigger study. But seeing complete remission in 100% of patients tested is a very promising early signal, researchers said.

"I believe this is the first time this has happened in the history of cancer," paper co-author Luis A. Diaz Jr. of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center told the New York Times.

Details: Patients were given the drug known as a programmed cell death-1 or PD-1 inhibitor, or dostarlimab, to treat a certain type of locally advanced rectal cancer.

After six months or more of follow-up, they continued to show no signs of cancer without needing standard treatments of surgery, radiation or chemotherapy.
"It's incredibly rewarding 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,'" said the principal investigator medical oncologist Andrea Cercek in a statement.

Yes, but: Again, this was a small study and not enough is yet known "to supplant our current curative treatment approach," an accompanying editorial pointed out.

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Trial of rectal cancer drug leads to remission in every patient

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