Cancer in all patients vanishes for the first time during US drug trial

A small-scale trial of a drug for cancer treatment has shown 100% success in removing the tumours and preventing recurrence in patients. According to experts, this is the first in the history of medical science.

New Delhi: The world may soon be able to get rid of a dreaded disease that is feared for the sheer number of lives it claims — cancer. For the first time, a drug trial has shown 100% eradication of cancer in patients at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan, US.

The trial, albeit small in scale, has brought hopes that cancer can be removed completely without going through long and painful chemotherapy sessions or surgeries. According to The New York Times, the drug — dostarlimab — was administered to 12 rectal cancer patients, who seemed to have recovered completely as the disease could not be detected by physical exam, endoscopy, positron emission tomography (PET) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans.

Dr Luis A Diaz Jr from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in a recent paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine said he was not aware of any other study, in which a treatment “completely obliterated a cancer in every patient”. “I believe this is the first time this has happened in the history of cancer,” Dr Diaz said.

The patients had almost given up hopes after failing to recover after going through gruelling chemotherapy and radiation sessions. Some of them even underwent “life-altering” surgeries, resulting in bowel, urinary, and sexual dysfunction. Some of them even had to use colostomy bags.

Not expecting their cancerous tumours to subside, they agreed to be part of the dostarlimab trial. They even expected their current treatment modes to continue. But to their pleasant surprise, they were taken off the painful chemotherapy and radiation sessions and also told that there would be no need to go under the knife.