An “unprecedented” discovery: American scientists manage to cure colorectal cancer

the essential These are clinical trials that bring great hope in the fight against the disease of the 21st century. An American team of researchers claims to have found an effective treatment to cure colorectal cancer. “This is the first time this has happened in the history of cancer.” Doctor Luis A. Diaz Jr. of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, is in disbelief. He and his team managed to beat colorectal cancer in clinical trials. The medical feat is told in the columns of the New England Journal of Medicine: for nearly six months, researchers conducted experiments based on dostarlimab, a monoclonal antibody. According to the New York Times, this treatment can unmask “cancer cells, allowing the immune system to identify and destroy them”: “These drugs do not work by directly attacking the cancer itself, but make the immune system of a person does most of the work”, explains to NPR, doctor Hanna Sanoff of the University of North Carolina Twelve patients took part in the experiment according to the researchers: the latter received a dose of product every three weeks, for six months. If the latter developed a “complete and sustained clinical response 12 months after the end of treatment”, it was no longer necessary for them to undergo chemotherapy. “A complete clinical response” The results are unequivocal: the 12 patients who took part in this experiment “had a complete clinical response, with no sign of tumour”. In any case, this is what the MRI analyzes show. In addition, “no case of progression or recurrence had been reported during the follow-up”, explains the study: “It is unprecedented”, comments for his part Dr. Alan P. Venook, specialist in colorectal cancer at the University of California in San Francisco, in the columns of the American tabloid. The researchers will closely follow the 12 patients who participated in this study to “evaluate the duration of the immune response”. In France, this medicine is better known as “Jemperli”. The Haute Autorité de Santé had issued an unfavorable opinion in October 2021 on the reimbursement of this drug by Social Security: the organization pointed out “the absence of robust comparative data”, “the very preliminary nature of the efficacy data available”, or even “greater risk-taking than for drugs whose effectiveness is well-founded”.