Patients got rid of cancer without chemotherapy, radiation therapy and even without surgery - these are the results
What happened? The main thing
12 people with colorectal cancer were curedtumors after six months of therapy with a new drug. The drug is called dostarlimab. The way it works is to make cancer cells visible to the immune system.
Scientists from Memorial Cancer CenterSloan Kettering in New York and Yale University found that a six-month course of the drug led to the disappearance of tumors in all 12 patients. The researchers emphasize that this is a promising result, but more work needs to be done. It is noted that even after a year of observation, the tumors did not grow; on the contrary, they decreased until they disappeared completely.
The results were startling, but still preliminary, said Graham Newsted, colorectal surgeon and medical director of the Australian Colon Cancer Unit.
“This drug needs to be tested in a large-scale trial, so far it has shown 100% effectiveness,” Newsted said.
What did the authors of the new work find out?
In an accompanying editorial, the oncologistof the gastrointestinal tract from the University of North Carolina, Hannah Sanoff said the results are something to be proud of, but the drug is not yet able to replace existing treatments.
When selecting volunteers, several criteria had to be observed:
First, according to Dr. Newsted, their tumorshould have been in the second or third stage. The second stage is a tumor that has grown into the wall of the rectum, and the third stage is through the wall into neighboring tissues or lymph glands. These are moderately advanced forms of cancer.
Tumors must also have at least onegene mutation - it prevents cells from finding and repairing DNA damage. This is seen in about 5% of patients with rectal cancer, according to Dr. Warrier.
Typically, these tumors do not respond well toradiation therapy and chemotherapy, which means that part or all of the rectum often needs to be surgically removed during treatment. This can negatively affect the entire body in the future. Sometimes this causes bowel dysfunction in patients.
Therefore, the goal of the authors of the new work is to reduce the need for surgery and reduce the size of the tumor with the help of medications.
The drug dostarlimab was developed by GlaxoSmithKline. Such drugs are called checkpoint inhibitors - this is one of the modern methods of treating endometrial cancer.
Cancer cells have many mechanisms thatallow them to grow and spread at the same time. At the same time, they remain invisible to our immune system. Dostarlimab binds to proteins found only in colon cancer cells. So he warns the immune system about the target that it should attack.
During the test, volunteers were injected with nineintravenous doses at intervals of three weeks. The course lasted six months, after which patients were planned to be sent for chemotherapy, radiation therapy or surgery. But it didn't come to that. The tumors shrank and then disappeared.
“And it was on all the exams: positron emission tomography, MRI, rectal re-examination and biopsy,” said Dr. Newsted.
And, as the researchers write, during the follow-up period - from six to 25 months - there were not a single case of tumor progression or recurrence.
During the observation period - from six to 25 months - not a single case of tumor progression or recurrence was recorded
What are the researchers going to do next?
According to Satish Warrier, colorectal surgeonfrom the Peter McCallum Cancer Center, the results of the study are groundbreaking, because this way patients can avoid not only surgery, but also radiation therapy.
The study involved 12 volunteers and four more are undergoing part of the course of treatment at the time of publication of the study. That, according to Dr. Newsted, is a terribly small sample.
Need more to give definitive answerspatients. We are talking about at least two cohorts, one of which will receive the drug or therapy, and the other will not. You also need to compare the effectiveness of the drug on an equal number of men and women.
A significant number of patients with stage 2 and stage 3 cancer still need to be studied: they need to be compared and followed long enough to make sure there is no relapse.
The majority of people with rectal cancer, at least 95%, still need traditional treatment, said Dr. Warrier.
Dr. Sanoff noted that it is not yet known whether the drug works for other types of rectal cancer or against different cancers in general.
The fact is that the trillions of microbes in the human gut — the gut microbiome — can influence the effectiveness of immunotherapy.
The researchers acknowledge that their work isjust the beginning. They suggest that dostarlimab will be tested in other localized tumors with DNA mutations, such as pancreatic, stomach, and prostate cancers.
Read more
The Japanese dumped a giant turbine into the ocean to get endless energy from the current.
Astronomers from Japan have found an unknown structure in the galaxy
Researchers filmed a 'hidden' ecosystem in an Antarctic river