Dostarlimab, First Treatment to ‘Completely Eliminate Cancer’

Rabat – A recent study found that dostarlimab, an immunotherapy for cancer, can “completely eliminate cancer” while preserving normal body function.

“It is really what cancer doctors’ dreams are made of to see such a response like this,” Andrea Cercek, one of the lead researchers of the dostarlimab experiment team, told CNN. “Our patients are feeling great after the treatment.”

The remarkable findings, covering just 12 patients, were published this week in The New England Journal of Medicine by researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK).

The study was led by Andrea Cercek, Section Head of Colorectal Cancer and Co-Director of MSK’s Center for Young Onset Colorectal and Gastrointestinal Cancer, and Luis Alberto Diaz, Head of the Division of Solid Tumor Oncology.

Their work included 12 cancer patients who completed their treatment with dostarlimab and have undergone follow-up for 6 to 25 months.

To date, none of the patients have been diagnosed with tumors or received chemoradiotherapy, or undergone surgery.

Explaining how immunotherapy works, Cercek told CNN, that dostarlimab “unlocks the body’s natural immune system to fight cancer,” which compensates for the lack of genes that repair DNA among patients with mismatch repair-deficient.

The “never seen before” results provide hope for more than 18 million cases that were diagnosed with cancer by 2020, particularly for rectal cancer cases that go through “toxic” therapy, said Cercek.

A 2021 study showed an expected surge in new colorectal cancer worldwide and particularly in the US and China, providing an urgent need for less toxic and damaging cancer treatments. China and the US are expected to record 910,000 and 210,000 new colorectal cancer cases in 2040.

Cancer cases in Morocco are also forecasted to increase from 144 cases per 100,000 people in 2018 to 192 in 2030 and 226 in 2040, according to the Swedish Institute for Health Economics.

Morocco also has the highest cancer mortality rate in the region compared to Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates. The high mortality rate raises concerns among the patients and their families as they constantly experience fear of cancer.