Two miracle drugs could help combat an explosion in colon cancer among young people – and both have already been approved in the US.
Both treatments are immunotherapies, which use the patient’s own disease-fighting white blood cells to attack cancerous tumors.
Studies have shown that pembrolizumab, sold under the brand name Keytruda, “melts away” tumors, potentially saving patients from the need for surgery and chemotherapy.
It was so effective that tests showed that six in ten patients had no trace of the disease months later. The drug is already used in America to treat lung and cervical cancer.
Meanwhile, a second, brand new drug from GSK was effective in 100 percent of cases of a rare form of colorectal cancer.
The above graph shows the rise of colorectal cancer in young Americans between 1999 and 2020
The findings were presented this weekend at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago.
They come as rates of colorectal cancer are expected to double between 2010 and the end of this decade.
Doctors are still trying to figure out what’s behind the rapid increase.
Processed foods, chemical contamination and the overuse of antibiotics have all been touted as possible factors.
For the Keytruda study, researchers from University College London in England recruited 32 patients from five British hospitals with stage two or three genetic subtypes of colon cancer, with a high number of mutations.
The patients had stage 3 cancer, meaning the cancer was in danger of spreading beyond the colon, currently causing one in three to die within five years.
Nine weeks before the operation, they received three doses of Keytruda.
The drug is given via a 30-minute injection into the back of the hand and stimulates the body’s immune system to fight cancer cells.
After finishing the immunotherapy drug, the patients underwent surgery to remove the part of their intestine where their tumors had been.
The results showed that 59 percent of patients had no trace of cancer when they were tested, usually between five and 19 months later, suggesting they did not even need surgery.
The remaining 41 percent had their tumors removed, and all are now disease-free.
Doctors said this is a dramatic improvement compared to the current standard treatment, which involves surgery to remove the tumor followed by three to six months of chemotherapy.
Dr. Kai-Keen Shiu, research leader at UCL Cancer Institute, said: ‘Immunotherapy can help tumors disappear before surgery.
‘If you melt out the cancer before surgery you normally triple the chances of survival.
The drug is currently FDA-approved for lung and cervical cancer, and it is available on the UK’s NHS for cervical, lung, melanoma and triple-negative breast cancer.
The main limitation of the study was the small sample size. The team also noted that more research is needed with longer follow-up times for remission.
Additionally, immunotherapy has been shown to cost more than $100,000 without insurance, although it is often covered by private insurance and Medicare.
Keytruda has previously shown benefits in other cancers, such as non-small cell lung cancer. In a testKeytruda reduced the risk of disease progression by 42 percent after chemotherapy compared to chemotherapy alone.
In addition, findings presented at Memorial Sloan Kettering’s ASCO in New York City showed that the immunotherapy drug Jemperli, or dostarlimab, showed “unprecedented results” by clearing the colorectal cancers of all 42 patients.
All patients had locally advanced mismatch repair deficient (dMMR) rectal cancer, a form of colorectal cancer that accounts for five to ten percent of cases.
Of the 42 patients, 24 were followed up after approximately 24 months and none of the participants experienced a recurrence of the disease. None of the patients required chemotherapy or surgery.
Hesham Abdullah, senior vice-president at drugmaker GSK, said: ‘The data showing no evidence of disease in 42 patients is remarkable.’
‘These results bring us one step closer to understanding the potential of dostarlimab in this curative setting for patients with dMMR locally advanced rectal cancer.’
Jemperli is currently FDA approved for endometrial cancer.