Medicine Spares Cancer Patients From Grisly Surgeries and Harsh Therapies

April 28, 2025

purple cells on a green medium

(New York Times) – For a limited group of cancer patients who have solid tumors in the stomach, rectum, esophagus and other organs, an immunotherapy trial offered stunning results.

In 49 of the patients, who had rectal cancer, the tumors disappeared and, after five years, have not recurred. Cancers also vanished for 35 of 54 patients who had other cancers, including in the stomach, esophagus, liver, endometrium, urinary tract and prostate.

Out of all 103 patients, cancers recurred in only five. Three got additional doses of immunotherapy and one, whose tumor recurred in a lymph node, had the lymph node removed. Those four patients so far have no evidence of disease. The fifth patient had additional immunotherapy that made the tumor shrink. (Read More)