Has the cure for cancer been found? Every patient had a 100 percent success rate in a small cancer clinical trial in a new study that has stunned doctors with what may be a medical first in fighting the disease.
New drug leaves every patient cancer-free.
The greatest medical breakthrough in human history? The results of a new clinical trial are nothing short of astonishing, as all 18 patients with rectal cancer had a 100 percent success rate with the use of a new drug.
“I believe this is the first time this has happened in the history of cancer,” Dr. Luis A. Diaz Jr, the author of the paper, told the New York Times.
A paper on a study conducted at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan was published on Sunday in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine showed all subjects cancer-free after the use of a new drug dostarlimab every three weeks for six months, the Daily Wire reported.
The drug “unmasks cancer cells, allowing the immune system to identify and destroy them.”
At the start of the trial, the participants in the study were all suffering from colon cancer to a degree of “deficient stage II or III rectal adenocarcinoma,” according to the study. Typically, doctors would pursue treatments such as chemotherapy or a difficult surgery, which could potentially lead to bowel or urinary dysfunction, in turn leading to the use of a colostomy bag for some patients, the New York Post reported, quoting the Times.
A cure for cancer at last?
While the doctors involved in the study call the results “remarkable,” they are cautious in implying a cure for cancer at last or inferring that the drug could return similar results across the board without further study.
“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,” said Hanna K. Sanoff, MD, MPH, from UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, and author of a viewpoint in the New England Journal of Medicine, Science Daily reported.
Dr. Sanoff also cautioned that we still don’t know enough about the long-term benefit of the drug, how long the remission will last, and whether its effect will be curative overall. Currently, patients in the trial have only been observed from six months to two years thus far.
“Very little is known about the duration of time needed to find out whether a clinical complete response to dostarlimab equates to cure,” Sanoff wrote in an editorial.
Nonetheless, thus far, doctors feel the effect of the drug brings promising news for cancer patients.
