“In the trial, funded by Merck Sharp and Dohme and sponsored by University College London, researchers recruited 32 patients with stage two or three bowel cancer and a certain genetic profile (MMR deficient/MSI-High bowel cancer) from five hospitals in the UK.
About 15% of patients with stage two or three bowel cancer have this particular genetic makeup.
Patients were given nine weeks of pembrolizumab, also known as Keytruda, before surgery instead of the usual treatment of chemotherapy and surgery, then monitored over time.
Results show 59% of patients had no signs of cancer after treatment with pembrolizumab, with any cancer in the remaining 41% of patients removed during surgery.
All of the patients in the trial were cancer-free after treatment. When standard chemotherapy was given to patients with this genetic profile, fewer than 5% had no signs of cancer after surgery, UCL said.”
From The Guardian.