© Shutterstock
A drug for rectal cancer shows astonishing results: tumors have disappeared in all patients treated with ‘dostarlimab’ in a clinical trial. “Never seen before,” claim the researchers in New York.
Karel Moors
Dostarlimab is a medicine used in the treatment of uterine cancer. Researchers are investigating whether the drug also works against rectal cancer. The first results are very positive: the tumors have disappeared in each of the 18 trial patients, and the doctors were no longer able to detect any traces of cancer after a year. “I believe this is the first time something like this has happened in cancer research,” said medical oncologist and principal investigator Luis Diaz.
The astonishing results of the immunotherapy in this test are very promising, but doctors warn that more research is needed on a larger scale, involving only a very limited number of subjects. The doctors do not want to speak of a miracle cure yet. The trial will be extended to patients with stomach, prostate and pancreatic cancer.
Dostarlimab can only be used in about ten percent of patients with rectal cancer who have a genetic mutation in their tumors. (km)