A revolutionary treatment to treat cancer 100%? not so fast

This Tuesday, we informed you of very conclusive research published in the New England Journal of Medicineregarding colorectal cancer. Thanks to the use of Dostarlimab, an immunotherapy drug from GSK, 12 patients with rectal cancer could have been completely cured. The treatment would have made it possible to recognize the cancerous cells and destroy them, all without side effects. Results presented as “unprecedented” in the history of oncology.

“I believe this is the first time this has happened in the history of cancer.“, enthused the American doctor Luis A. Diaz Jr. on this subject.

However, the results of this study are to be qualified, explains this Wednesday professor Eric Van Cutsem of UZ Leuven in the columns of the Evening. Dostarlimab is not as revolutionary as one might think. “It is a hope and it shows that we must continue research, but this drug is not a novelty, says the expert. Already, in Belgium, we use two similar ones, with equivalent results.”

At Gasthuisberg, the university hospital of UZ Leuven, seven to eight patients have already been treated with a very similar immunotherapy, further specifies the professor. “And with the same result! Thanks to a simple biopsy, we can know who will respond favorably to immunotherapy.”

heavy therapy

In addition, the treatment is not trivial and can cause adverse effects, warns Eric Van Custem. “It is a therapy that remains quite heavy and with consequences such as the placement of a pocket (artificial anus) in a quarter of patients or an anastomosis (connection between two conduits) close to the anus which causes them to suffer from incontinence. or forces them to go ten to fifteen times a day to the toilet because the rectal reservoir has been removed”, says Prof. Eric Van Custem.

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