In breakthrough trial, Cancer drug makes rectal tumors disappear with 100% success

In a breakthrough clinical trial conducted at the MSK Cancer Center in New York City, 12 rectal cancer patients entered remission with a 100% success rate. During the trials, details of which have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), tumors of all the patients disappeared after receiving a drug named dostarlimab. Interestingly, dostarlimab is an experimental drug but, the patients who received it no longer needed radiation or chemotherapy and experienced no side effects later on.

According to the study, all participants of the trial had a "mismatch repair-deficient" rectal cancer. This is a condition that emerges when the cell's ability to prevent any mutations while copying a DNA, hence the name 'mismatch repair' (MMR), is crippled. According to the National Cancer Institute, if the MMR deficient cells have many mutations, it can lead to cancer. Notably, about 5-10% of all rectal cancer is associated with MMR deficiency in patients.

Breakthrough trial of Cancer Drug

During the unprecedented trial, 500 mg of the rectal cancer drug, dostarlimab, was administered to the patients every three weeks for six months in patients with mismatch repair-deficient stage II or III of their condition. In their study, the experts noted that the treatment of each of these patients was to be followed by standard chemoradiotherapy and surgery, however, after six months of treatment and a few follow-up observations, all of the patients had a complete clinical response, with no evidence of tumor on magnetic resonance imaging.

"At the time of this report (June 5), no patients had received chemoradiotherapy or undergone surgery, and no cases of progression or recurrence had been reported during follow-up (range, 6 to 25 months)", the researchers said in their study.

Prospects of the Drug Trial

While the scientists are rejoicing over the results of the trial, it is still unclear if the drug would work on all types of rectal cancer or even if the cured patients will remain in remission. However, the success is still a matter of celebration as Dr. Luis Alberto Diaz, Jr., one of the trial leaders told The New York Times that "this is the first time this has happened in the history of cancer" when all patients of a single study were cured.