A new drug for colorectal cancer has surprised researchers at how effective it is against the highly dangerous disease, as it nearly cured it in every member of a clinical trial.
Dostarlimab, a monoclonal antibody drug, recently broke expectations in a trial run by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, sponsored by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).
One year after the completion of the trial, each of the 18 participants had their disease completely gone, with doctors unable to find signs of cancer in their bodies.
‘I believe this is the first time this has happened in the history of cancer,’ said Dr. Luis Diaz, one of the paper’s lead authors and an oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Diaz told new York Times The discovery was ‘the tip of the iceberg’.
While the trial was small, it is considered game-changing, and establishes the drug as a potential cure for one of the most dangerous common cancers known.
“We are investigating whether this same approach may help in other cancers where treatments are often life-changing and the tumors may be MMRD,” he said.
‘We are currently enrolling patients with gastric (stomach), prostate and pancreatic cancer.’
A recent clinical trial of dostarlimab, a monoclonal antibody drug, found that it nearly cured the cancer in every participant (file photo)
Prior to the trial 18 patients had undergone previous treatment for colorectal cancer, which included chemotherapy and risky surgery.
These painful, life-changing, procedures typically come with colorectal cancer — a devastating diagnosis that affects 150,000 Americans each year, according to cancer.net,
It is the third most common type of cancer in the US and kills about 50,000 people each year – the second largest of any cancer.
Patients enrolled in the study received monoclonal antibody treatment every three weeks for six months.
It cost about $11,000 per dose.
The drug exposes the cancer cells, which then allows the immune system to recognize and destroy them.
The researchers followed up with the patients 12 months later, and after the cancer had disappeared from their bodies, medical staff were unable to find signs of the tumor with any of the available screening methods.
‘There were many happy tears,’ said Dr Andrea Cersek, an oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and co-author of the paper, which was presented Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
In addition, no further treatment was needed.
“At the time of this report, none of the patients had undergone chemoradiotherapy or surgery, and no cases of progression or recurrence were reported during follow-up,” the researchers wrote in the study published in New England Journal of Medicine,
While the study results are unprecedented, the researchers note that the sample size was relatively small and that more research will have to be done to determine whether they really stumbled upon a cancer treatment (file photo)
As a result, all participating patients were able to avoid the more dangerous, taxing, treatment.
,[The results] enabled us to skip both chemoradiotherapy and surgery and proceed with observation alone,’ the researchers wrote.
Surgery and radiation can have lasting effects on fertility, sexual health, and bowel and bladder function.
‘The implications for quality of life are substantial, particularly in patients in whom standard treatment would affect the ability to have a child.’
The treatment also came with limited negative side effects.
About 20 percent of participants felt adverse effects, but they were easily managed.
Although this study is groundbreaking, and it looks like doctors may have found a cure for cancer, they know it’s too early to declare it a miracle drug.
They wrote, ‘While the results of our study are promising, especially considering that 12 consecutive patients had a clinically complete response, the study is small and represents the experience of a single institution.
‘These findings should be reproduced in a larger prospective cohort that balances academic and community practices and ensures the participation of patients from a diverse set of racial and ethnic backgrounds.’
Dr. Hanna K. of the University of North Carolina’s Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Sanoff said the results were ‘small but compelling’.
Sanoff, who was not involved in the study, said it is not clear whether the patients have recovered.
“Little is known about the length of time needed to ascertain whether clinical complete response to dostarlimumab is equivalent to treatment,” he said in the editorial.
The first patient out of 18 was Sasha Roth, then 38, who in 2019 had some rectal bleeding but felt fine.
She had a sigmoidoscopy, and her gastroenterologist said: ‘Oh no. I was not expecting that!’
Roth’s doctor called the next day and told him: ‘It’s definitely cancer.’
Roth told the New York Times: ‘I completely melted.’
She was about to start chemotherapy at Georgetown University, but a friend recommended that she first see Dr. Philip Petty at Memorial Sloan Kettering, who then told her that her cancer contained mutations that were likely to respond well to chemotherapy. Not there.
However, she was eligible to start the trial with dostarlimab.
Roth didn’t expect the test to work, and planned to go to New York for radiation, chemotherapy, and possibly surgery after the trial ended—even as her ovaries were removed and preserved. To put his ribs back under.
After the test, Dr. Cersek told her the good news.
‘We saw your scan,’ she said. ‘Absolutely not cancer.’
Roth said: ‘I told my family. He didn’t believe me.