FASTER, PLEASE: A Cancer Trial’s Unexpected Result: Remission in Every Patient.
It was a small trial, just 18 rectal cancer patients, every one of whom took the same drug.
But the results were astonishing. The cancer vanished in every single patient, undetectable by physical exam, endoscopy, PET scans or M.R.I. scans.
Dr. Luis A. Diaz Jr. of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, an author of a paper published Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine describing the results, which were sponsored by the drug company GlaxoSmithKline, said he knew of no other study in which a treatment completely obliterated a cancer in every patient. . . .
Not expecting a complete response to dostarlimab, Ms. Roth had planned to move to New York for radiation, chemotherapy and, possibly surgery after the trial ended. To preserve her fertility after the expected radiation treatment, she had her ovaries removed and put back under her ribs.
After the trial, Dr. Cercek gave her the news.
“We looked at your scans,” she said. “There is absolutely no cancer.” She did not need any further treatment.
“I told my family,” Ms. Roth said. “They didn’t believe me.”
But two years later, she still does not have a trace of cancer.
Faster, please.