New Delhi: An immunotherapy drug trial conducted in a handful of cancer patients in Manhattan of New York City in the United States has shown a 100 per cent success rate, a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine has stated.
“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.
Eighteen cancer patients at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan were successfully cured by a drug called 'dostarlimab' administered every three weeks for six months.
Rectal cancer patients have to usually undergo chemotherapy and radiation, or a surgery that could potentially lead to bowel/urinary dysfunction.
In this case, the patients were left with no evidence of a tumor at the end of the drug trial and spared the agony of the potentially damaging treatment.
Though the trial is in the preliminary stage, it offers hope to many patients worried about the far-reaching side effects of rectal cancer.
Immunotherapy harnesses the body’s own immune system as an ally against cancer.
"This is a great advance in the history of cancer treatment," Dr MV Pillai, President of International Network for Cancer Treatment and Research said.
"However, the fact that they did not confirm the efficacy of the drug after histology is a defect in the study. The drug trial involved only a few patients. Only a detailed trial can confirm the efficacy of the drug," he added.
Histology, a branch of biology which studies the microscopic anatomy of biological tissue, allows for the visualization of tissue structure and characteristic changes the tissue may have undergone.
“If the effectiveness of the drug in modifying the disease at gene-level is proved and the efficacy of the drug is confirmed in more number of patients it will certainly be a milestone," he said.
