A small study of medication for rectal cancer has produced stunning results, with all 18 participating patients who took the drug dostarlimad having reached complete remission.
All 18 patients, diagnosed with rectal cancer, had undergone treatments ranging from chemotherapy, radiation in some cases, life-altering surgery.
The cancer simply vanished; it could not be found on physical exam, endoscopy, MRI or PET scans.
“I believe this is the first time this has happened in the history of cancer,” said Dr. Luis A. Diaz Jr. of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and author of the paper on the findings that was published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine.
US President Joe Biden appointed Diaz in September 2021 to a six-year term on the National Cancer Advisory Board, which advises the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, the director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and ultimately the president himself on a range of cancer issues.
The study, sponsored by the GlaxoSmithKline pharmaceutical company, has widespread implications for treatment of rectal cancer, which tends to be less responsive to chemotherapy and radiation than other forms of the disease.
“Over 45,000 people in the United States were diagnosed with rectal cancer last year, and many of those cases were in people under the age of 65,” said Hanna K. Sanoff, MD, MPH, who serves as quality and innovation officer of the North Carolina Cancer Hospital and professor at the UNC School of Medicine Division of Oncology.
Sanoff, a gastrointestinal medical oncologist, wrote a viewpoint in the New England Journal of Medicine to provide a perspective on the evolving treatment of rectal cancer.
“Historical treatment of the disease has included radiation, surgery and chemotherapy, which can be debilitating despite its curative potential, pointing to the need for better and more effective treatments that can prolong longevity while maintaining quality of life,” Sanoff said.
“These initial findings of the remarkable benefit with the use of dostarlimab are very encouraging but also need to be viewed with caution until the results can be replicated in a larger and more diverse population.”
