All 18 Patients in Drug Trial Enter Remission after New Drug Trial in NYC

By Yehudit Garmaise

All 18 cancer patients who received a new drug entered remission after an experimental trial that took place at Memorial Sloan Kettering in Manhattan.

The study included a small number of participants, and the results would need to be replicated, said Dr. Kimmie Ng, a colorectal cancer expert at Harvard Medical School, however patients and their families are hopeful.

“I believe this is the first time this has happened in the history of cancer,” Dr. Luis A. Diaz Jr, one of the authors of the paper told the New York Times.

Published Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine, the drug trial, which had a 100% success rate, showed the surprising result of eliminating the cancer in every single participant.

Every three weeks for six months, researchers gave the study’s participants, all of whom had colon cancer, the drug, dostarlimab, the New York Post reported.

Although the study’s participants were slated for chemotherapy, difficult surgeries that could potentially lead to bowel or urinary dysfunction, and other agonizing treatments, at the conclusion of the drug trial, none of the 18 patients showed any evidence of cancerous tumors after receiving MRIs, rectal examinations, and biopsies.

“There were a lot of happy tears,” Dr. Andrea Cercek, a co-author of the study who is an oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

In follow-up appointments from six to 25 months after the trial ended, none of the study’s 18 participants showed any recurrence of cancer.

While the results are “compelling,” Dr. Hanna K. Sanoff of the University of North Carolina’s Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, said it is not clear whether and for long the patients are cured.

“Very little is known about the duration of time needed to find out whether a clinical complete response to dostarlimab equates to cure,” Dr. Sanoff said.