{"id":93859,"date":"2025-05-11T23:01:34","date_gmt":"2025-05-11T23:01:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/93859\/"},"modified":"2025-05-11T23:01:34","modified_gmt":"2025-05-11T23:01:34","slug":"a-humanized-mouse-antibody-erases-cancer-in-84-people-with-a-genetic-mutation-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/93859\/","title":{"rendered":"A humanized mouse antibody erases cancer in 84 people with a genetic mutation | Science"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new strategy, which three years ago achieved 100% tumor elimination in a dozen patients with rectal cancer, has now achieved outstanding results in another group with cases of esophageal, stomach, colon, liver, bladder, uterus, and prostate cancer. The treatment, known as immunoablative therapy<\/a>, has achieved the apparent disappearance of cancer in 80% of 100 participants who share a specific genetic mutation. Oncologist Ana Fern\u00e1ndez Montes, who was not involved in this research, considers it \u201ca paradigm shift.\u201d The treatment avoids having to resort to other more aggressive alternatives, such as surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy.<\/p>\n

One of the patients, Maureen Sideris, a hyperactive and chatty 71-year-old New Yorker, stops her car to take a phone call from EL PA\u00cdS. Three years ago, she was diagnosed with gastroesophageal cancer and thought she was going to lose her speech, or even her life. Now she\u2019s thriving. Her tumor\u2019s remission is complete, after receiving an intravenous treatment \u2014 dostarlimab<\/a> \u2014 every three weeks for six months. The success has spared her from undergoing a risky esophageal operation. \u201cI\u2019m happy because I love to talk,\u201d she jokes. \u201cThe cancer has disappeared in my PET images [a medical scan] and biopsies. The doctors are cautious and only talk about remission, but when it\u2019s five years, they\u2019ll use the word cure,\u201d she celebrates, before saying goodbye enthusiastically and getting back on the road. \u201cI feel like I won the lottery,\u201d she exclaims.<\/p>\n

Dostarlimab, a drug developed by the U.S. biotechnology company AnaptysBio, is a mouse defensive protein<\/a> \u2014 an antibody \u2014 that has been genetically engineered to humanize it. It is produced in Chinese hamster ovary cells. The essence of the treatment is well-known. Japanese scientist Tasuku Honjo<\/a> made a discovery in 1992 that would save millions of lives. In the human body, he discovered a protein, called PD-1, that acts as a brake on the body\u2019s defenses. By removing this natural blockage, with an antibody called nivolumab, the immune system itself could attack tumor cells with greater ferocity. Honjo won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2018, as the father of a disruptive technique for treating cancer: immunotherapy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The humanized mouse antibody also blocks the activity of the PD-1 protein, which unleashes human defenses, which are what destroy tumor cells. The drug was already approved in 2021 for endometrial cancer, in combination with chemotherapy. A team of researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center \u2014 a private nonprofit organization in New York \u2014 made a bold decision: to use only dostarlimab, as soon as possible, to see what would happen.<\/p>\n

The scientists selected patients with a specific genetic mutation in their tumors, called mismatch repair deficiency, which is particularly sensitive to PD-1 inhibitors such as dostarlimab. The Sloan Kettering team estimates that 5\u201310% of rectal tumors and 2\u201310% of other solid cancers may have this weakness.<\/p>\n

Sascha Roth, a 38-year-old woman from Washington with rectal cancer, was the first person to dare to volunteer. Her tumor\u2019s remission was so rapid and astonishing that even her doctors couldn\u2019t believe it, but the same thing happened with the second patient. And the third. On June 5, 2022, scientists announced a \u201ccomplete response\u201d in the first dozen cases analyzed. The cancer had apparently disappeared, but the authors warned that more time was needed to ensure the tumors didn\u2019t recur.<\/p>\n

\"FourFour patients (from left, Sascha Roth, Imtiaz Hussain, Avery Holmes and Nisha Varughese) with oncologists Luis Alberto D\u00edaz and Andrea Cercek.MSK<\/p>\n

More than five years after that first volunteer, the researchers, led by oncologists Andrea Cercek and Luis Alberto D\u00edaz, have just published the results of another 100 cases, without metastasis, but locally advanced. In the 49 people with rectal cancer treated, no signs of the disease are now detectable. In another 54 with tumors in other parts of the body \u2014 esophagus, stomach, colon, liver, bladder, uterus, and prostate \u2014 the results are not as spectacular, but still outstanding. Approximately two out of three have experienced a complete response, meaning that all signs of cancer have vanished. In total, 84 patients have their cancer apparently eliminated, out of a total of 103. In those whose tumor did not disappear, it did shrink.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are incredible results,\u201d says D\u00edaz, born in Schenectady, New York, 54 years ago. His Peruvian mother arrived there seven months pregnant. In 2021, then-president Joe Biden appointed him as an advisor on his cancer strategy. D\u00edaz is elated. Those first dozen participants, like Sascha Roth, remain tumor-free. Four of them have been tumor-free for more than five years, so we can now speak of a cure, according to the oncologist.<\/p>\n

The therapy isn\u2019t cheap. A single dose sells for more than $5,500, so treating a single patient can cost around $55,000. \u201cIn the end, it will be cheaper because you\u2019ll avoid expensive therapies such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery,\u201d says D\u00edaz. The British pharmaceutical company that holds the marketing permit for dostarlimab, GlaxoSmithKline, earned around $618 million from sales of the antibody in 2024, thanks to its widespread use against endometrial cancer in the United States.<\/p>\n

The new study, published April 27 in the New England Journal of Medicine, has received funding from GlaxoSmithKline itself, but also from the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health, as well as charities such as Swim Across America, which organizes fundraising swims. Participants in the clinical trial range in age from 26 to 87. The researchers emphasize that more time is needed to confirm the long-term benefit, especially in patients with non-rectal tumors, for whom the average follow-up has been only about 15 months.<\/p>\n

Fern\u00e1ndez Montes, a member of the board of directors of the Spanish Society of Medical Oncology, applauds the new results. \u201cThere are very high clinical responses, with excellent disease control, and people are spared from abdominoperineal amputation of the rectum,\u201d emphasizes the oncologist from the Ourense University Hospital Complex. D\u00edaz coined the term immunoablative therapy \u201cbecause it means removing the tumor with immunotherapy,\u201d without surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy, thus avoiding very serious adverse effects, such as infertility. Immunoablative therapy sounds \u201cfuturistic,\u201d D\u00edaz acknowledges, but so far it has worked in dozens of cases.<\/p>\n

Sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a> to get more English-language news coverage from EL PA\u00cdS USA Edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new strategy, which three years ago achieved 100% tumor elimination in a dozen patients with rectal cancer,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3846],"tags":[1204,267,44190,44191,70,44189,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-93859","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-cancer","9":"tag-genetics","10":"tag-glaxosmithkline","11":"tag-joseph-biden","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-tasuku-honjo","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114491692420442753","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}