A heartwarming moment recently took place at New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK): a rectal cancer patient called his mother, and together, they cried tears of joy over the phone. MSK’s groundbreaking clinical trial, which employed an innovative immunotherapy, achieved 100% remission in 14 rectal cancer patients, with no cancer remaining. Experts are calling this trial a game-changing breakthrough in cancer treatment.
In early results released in 2022, the trial showed that all 12 patients who initially participated had complete cancer remission. Updated data from 2024 now includes 14 patients with a continued 100% remission rate and no recurrence—a rarity in cancer treatment.
Traditional rectal cancer therapies often include surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, which can deeply affect quality of life. For rectal cancer, these treatments may lead to incontinence, sexual dysfunction, and other serious side effects. However, in this study, immunotherapy alone successfully eradicated cancer. By blocking the PD-1 protein, this therapy allowed the immune system to recognize and eliminate the cancer cells in patients who had a specific genetic mutation known as mismatch repair deficiency (MMRd), making them particularly responsive to this treatment.
Every patient in this trial avoided surgery and the side effects of radiation and chemotherapy. The first participant, Sascha Roth, was thrilled when told she wouldn’t need radiation and that her cancer was completely gone. “It’s incredible to still have all my normal functions!” she said.
The patient who called his mother, Imtiaz Hussain, shared the same joy upon learning his cancer was completely gone, leading to an emotional conversation with his family.
此后，试验范围扩大到更多患者，结果仍然令人鼓舞。目前共有 42 名患者接受了治疗，全部无癌症。MSK 研究人员正在密切跟踪这些患者，以确定治疗的长期效果，并探索免疫疗法是否可以成为传统癌症治疗的可行替代方案。
这项试验标志着癌症治疗领域的重大进步。免疫疗法不仅可以补充现有疗法，而且在特定情况下还可以完全取代现有疗法。免疫疗法通过激活人体自身的防御系统来治疗癌症，未来不仅可能彻底改变直肠癌的治疗方法，也可能彻底改变其他癌症类型的治疗方法。
该研究最初于 2022 年 6 月 5 日发表在《新英格兰医学杂志》上。
Reference:
Cercek, A., Lumish, M., Sinopoli, J., Weiss, J., Shia, J., Lamendola-Essel, M., El Dika, I. H., et al. (2022). PD-1 Blockade in Mismatch Repair–Deficient, Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer. The New England Journal of Medicine, 386(24), 2363–2376. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2201445