BOWEL cancer patients could be cured without surgery or chemo using a drug that harnesses their own immune system. Everyone given the immunotherapy pembrolizumab in a trial was cancer-free after treatment and six in 10 did not need an operation as well. 2 Bowel cancer is one of the most common types (stock image) Credit: Getty - Contributor Surgery is the standard treatment with chemotherapy afterwards to finish off the tumours.
Treatment with the drug before an op was enough to cure more than half of patients in the study, and slashed the risk of relapse for the rest. The blockbuster medication, known as Keytruda, is already used on the NHS for other types of cancer. Trial leader Dr Kai-Keen Shiu, from University College London, said: “Our results show this is a safe and highly effective treatment that increases the chances of curing the disease at an early stage.
” Bowel tumours are the third most common form of the disease in England, with 43,000 cases per year. Bowel awareness up thanks to Dame Debs 2 Dame Deborah James died in June 2022, five and a half years after she was diagnosed with incurable bowel cancer Credit: bowelbabe/Instagram Public awareness is on the up thanks to campaigners like Sun writer Dame Deborah James , who died from the disease in 2022 at just 40 years old. About 3,000 Brits each year get the type of tumour studied in the trial, which was stage two or three MMR deficient/MSI-high cancer.
Genetic mutations make it difficult to eradicate so doctor.
