A new immunotherapy treatment reduces the recurrence of colon cancer by 50%.

In a promising medical development, a recent study has shown that adding the drug "Tecentriq," produced by Roche, to chemotherapy after surgery can reduce the risk of colon cancer recurrence and death by 50%, compared to chemotherapy alone. This discovery resulted from a clinical trial presented recently at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting. The study targeted a group of colon cancer patients with tumors caused by a genetic defect known as mismatch repair deficiency (dMMR), a type of tumor that does not respond well to traditional chemotherapy. It is estimated that around 15% of colon cancer patients have this type of defect. The study involved 712 patients in stage III colon cancer, all of whom underwent surgeries to remove tumors and had cancer cells spread to lymph nodes. The participants were divided into two groups: the first received chemotherapy for six months followed by Tecentriq for another six months, while the second group received chemotherapy alone for 12 months. The results showed that combining immunotherapy and chemotherapy reduced the likelihood of disease recurrence and death by half. Remarkably, this benefit was observed even in older patients or those with health conditions that make them more prone to complications. Dr. Frank Sinicrope from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, who led the study, explained that the results represent a significant advancement in adjuvant therapy for stage III colon cancer associated with DNA mismatch repair deficiency, confirming that this data will change the approach to this type of cancer in the near future.