Every patient in this experimental drug trial saw their cancer disappear, researchers say

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rectal-cancer-drug-trial-immunotherapy-dostarlimab-study/

Quote

These same remarkable results would be seen in 14 patients to date. The study was published Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine. All of the patients had rectal cancer in a locally advanced stage, with a rare mutation called mismatch repair deficiency (MMRd).

They were given six months of treatment with an immunotherapy drug called dostarlimab, from the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, which helped fund the research. The cancer vanished in every single one of them — undetectable by physical exam, endoscopy, PET scans or MRI scans, the researchers said.

This is pretty amazing.

Question is - will anyone be able to afford the treatment?

6 minutes ago, mikemack8 said:

Question is - will anyone be able to afford the treatment?  will this drug be buried and never seen again

FYP

Good point - there's probably still less money in an expensive pill that cures than there is in months and months of treatment.  

14 minutes ago, Paul852 said:

FYP

you know they have a cure for the common cold hidden somewhere    

Just take the horse pills

Drug discovery is hard, guys. We should be celebrating advances like this rather than mocking the researchers and developers.

The drug costs about $11,000 per dose, The Times reports. It was administered to each patient every three weeks for six months, and it works by exposing cancer cells so the immune system can identify and destroy them.

5 minutes ago, DaEagles4Life said:

The drug costs about $11,000 per dose, The Times reports. It was administered to each patient every three weeks for six months, and it works by exposing cancer cells so the immune system can identify and destroy them.

Cheaper and potentially more effective than HIPEC. If you don't know what HIPEC is, be thankful.

Yeah on the scale of drug prices $11k a dose isn't awful. There's a newish pediatric drug for SMA that runs over 2 million for a course. 

Here's another one.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/first-of-its-kind-e2-80-98chemo-bomb-e2-80-99-breast-cancer-treatment-applauded-by-doctors/ar-AAYbW2m?ocid=uxbndlbing

 

When Mr Di was diagnosed I went right to the NCCN web site for the latest treatment protocol and l handed it over to the oncologist and said this is what he's getting.  At the time, they just recently began using immunotherapy along with the chemo.  It was over $30K per treatment. Insurance paid it.

Definitely promising,  but a long way to go (larger trial, long term monitoring).

7 minutes ago, BBE said:

Definitely promising,  but a long way to go (larger trial, long term monitoring).

And in CRC patients without the mutation

1 minute ago, we_gotta_believe said:

And in CRC patients without the mutation

Very true.  The fundamental concept is promising regardless. 

Great news

1 hour ago, BBE said:

Definitely promising,  but a long way to go (larger trial, long term monitoring).

Not easy finding any good news at all these days. This was very welcome. Yes, a long way to go.

Immunotherapy innovator Jim Allison’s Nobel purpose

https://www.mdanderson.org/publications/conquest/immunotherapy-innovator-jim-allisons-nobel-purpose.h36-1592202.html

Jim Allison, Ph.D., is a blues-loving scientist from the small town of Alice, Texas, who shook off immunotherapy naysayers and made believers out of everyone when he figured out how to turn the immune system against tumors.

The Food and Drug Administration approves the anti-CTLA-4 antibody ipilimumab, now known as Yervoy, for treatment of late-stage melanoma after the drug becomes the first to extend the survival of these patients.

 

1995
In a paper in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, Allison Shows that the protein CTLA-4 acts as a brake on T cells, halting immune response.

1996
Reports in a Science paper that blocking CTLA-4 with an antibody unleashes an immune response against cancer in experimental models, curing 90 percent of cases

1997
Named of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute

2004
Becomes chair of the Immunology Program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York