Scientists are working tirelessly to discover a cancer drug that has eluded them for years. But a recent development reported in the international newspapers and the world media seems to raise hopes about having found the wonder drug. Although it is too early to conclude anything, the clinical trial results for the womb cancer drug dostarlimab have been miraculous, to say the least, and shocked the world. The trial made the impossible happen. At the end of the trial, it seemed that all patients who participated had recovered from cancer.
Is it the cancer drug the world is waiting for?
While the reports about the efficacy of the drug dostarlimab seem like a miracle, it needs more trials and tests to prove that it is the drug that the world has been eagerly waiting for years. But that cancer cure is in sight is encouraging enough for intensifying research to expedite the much-awaited drug delivery. However, the just-concluded trial shocked everyone because of the unexpected result that cured patients with rectal cancer. It happened for the first time in history and made the event memorable.
A world-first in cancer research
The clinical trial for the drug was carried out on 18 patients with rectal cancer who were in similar stages of cancer. The patients were administered the drug dostarlimab, derived from molecules produced in the laboratory, which can substitute antibodies in the human body. The trial continued for six months and had a schedule for administering the drug to the participants at three-week intervals. When doctors examined the patients over 12 months since the trial began, they found no traces of cancer anymore. However, cancer remained localized in an advanced stage, but there were no signs of the disease affecting other body organs. According to experts, physical and radiological examinations like positron emission tomography, endoscopy and MRI scans, or PET scans cannot detect cancer.
The cure is not far
Despite the small sample size of the clinical trials, the results uphold the drug’s potential to cure the most common but deadly cancer. The patients participating in the trial were expected to go through radiation, chemotherapy, and invasive surgery, as happens typically during cancer treatment—however, Dr. Andrea cercek, an oncologist and co-author of the paper, described the moment the patients learned that they were cancer-free. The trial’s findings shocked the experts as it was for the time in history that all patients responded in the same way to the drug without remission. Moreover, the most impressive aspect of the result is that only a few patients showed significant complications from the drug.
Researchers wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine that besides the patients not requiring any further treatment for cancer, the most heartening fact is that there were no reports of recurrence or progression during follow-up.
Although it is too early to confirm the arrival of a cancer drug that cures cancer, the results are promising.
