In a major breakthrough, cancer tumours disappear from every patient in drug trial
According to a New York Times (NYT) story, Dr. Luis A. Diaz Jr of Memorial Sloan Kettering Malignancy Center stated that he was aware of no previous research in which a treatment entirely eradicated a cancer in every patient.
Tumors have vanished from every patient engaged in a medication study for the first time in cancer history. The experiment included up to 18 rectal cancer patients, all of whom received the identical medicine. Surprisingly, the cancer had disappeared in every single patient and was undetected by physical examination, endoscopy, or MRI scans. The results of the study were just published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
According to a New York Times (NYT) story, Dr. Luis A. Diaz Jr of Memorial Sloan Kettering Malignancy Center stated that he was aware of no previous research in which a treatment entirely eradicated a cancer in every patient.
"I believe this is the first time this has happened in the history of cancer," Dr Diaz was quoted as saying in the paper.
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GlaxoSmithKline, a pharmaceutical corporation, supported the experiment. Dr. Alan P. Venook, a colon cancer expert at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the study, agreed that this was a first and that achieving full remission in every single patient is "unheard-of."
The rectal cancer patients, according to the research, had endured gruelling treatments such as chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery, which might result in bowel, urinary, and sexual problems. Some cancer patients required colostomy bags, which are plastic bags that collect faeces from the digestive tract via a stoma in the abdominal wall.
The cancer patients enrolled in the study expecting to have to repeat the surgeries after the study since they did not anticipate their tumours to go. They were shocked, however, to discover that their cancer had disappeared and that no additional treatment was required. According to the study, one out of every five individuals experienced an adverse response to the medicine dostarlimab. Dostarlimab is a kind of checkpoint inhibitor. The medicine, which was administered every three weeks for six months, unmasks cancer cells, allowing the immune system to detect and eliminate them. Each dose costs over $11,000.
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On June 5, 2022, the report was presented at the annual conference of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.