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Dostarlimab, an experimental drug developed by pharma company GSK, cured rectal cancer in all 12 patients who took part in an initial trial.
The drug was administered every three weeks for six months.
At the end of the trial, all 12 patients showed no sign of cancer on MRIs or PET scans, or in an endoscopy or physical exam.
All 12 people also remained cancer free for six months to more than two years after the experiment ended.
“I believe this is the first time this has happened in the history of cancer” that an experimental drug showed a perfect record of abolishing the disease in every patient, Dr. Luis A. Diaz Jr. of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, who helped conduct the study, told The New York Times.
None of the patients needed follow-up chemotherapy, surgery, or other standard forms of cancer treatment.
Also, none showed any negative side effects, which is unheard of in standard cancer therapies.
One patient was preparing for several weeks of radiation treatment when she learned her cancer had disappeared.
“I told my family. They didn’t believe me,” she said in a NYT interview.
The drug is a form of immunotherapy, which “unmasks” cancer cells to the body’s immune system, so the body’s defenders recognize the cancer as a foreign entity and kill it.
TRENDPOST: Sloan Kettering is now planning a trial of 30 patients to see if the effect is sustained.
Later, the drug can be tested on other forms of cancer to see if Dostarlimab is the “magic bullet” oncology has been seeking for more than a century.