Source: Drug Discovery and Development
For years, cancer has been the leading cause of death around the world, with about 1.7 million new diagnoses each year resulting in 600, 000 deaths, and the mere mention of it has invoked a sense of fear in many. Prior to the developments of modern medicine, a cancer diagnosis was a surefire death sentence but thanks to the greater understanding that oncologists and cancer researchers have in the cause, metastasis, and destruction of cancer cells, they may have finally developed a drug that can eliminate this terrible disease for good.
First, it is important to understand what cancer is and how it affects the body. Cancer is when cells divide uncontrollably and have a type of malformation that leads to the tissue in the body weakening. Now, the specific drug being mentioned in this article focuses on rectal tumors, which are clusters of cancerous cells located in the rectum, which are often diagnosed through colonoscopies. Prior to the introduction of this drug, the standard procedure to treat rectal tumors would be chemotherapy and radiation as well as surgery in the more extreme cases. However, now the understanding of this experimental drug can cause a drastic change in the way rectal tumors are viewed and can go on to change the entire world of cancer.
A study performed by Julie Gralow and her team of oncologists in the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York visibly expressed that an experimental drug, called dostarlimab-gxly, has resulted in remission of 100% of cancer patients with rectal tumors. The experiment was initiated by taking 18 early stage cancer patients with rectal tumors of the same variation who have all had no prior treatment and inject them with the drug every three weeks over a six month period. The drug has completely diminished the tumors in 14 of the patients and the other 4 are on a similar pathway with no negative side effects, making this drug regimen vastly different from those of chemotherapy and radiation which cause nausea, dizziness, and an abundance of other detrimental results.
Based on the extensive success this drug faced in future trials, on August 17, 2021, the Food and Drug Administration has officially approved dostarlimab-gxly as a cancer treatment for adults with mismatch repair deficient recurrent or advanced solid tumors. Additionally, since this drug has had incredible effects on mitigating the reproduction of cancer cells that make up tumors, oncologists are hopeful that the same drug can be used and slightly altered, if needed, in order to achieve remissions in numerous other types of cancers by limiting the spread and production of the diseased cells. All in all, this is one of the biggest developments of modern cancer research and medicine and it paves the way to many further pharmaceutical discoveries to aid other illnesses.
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