Let’s Talk About The Dostarlimab Trial Results Making News

DivineMrsM

While only tried on 18 rectal cancer patients and not breast cancer, results were all 18 saw tumors vanish.It’s referred to as immune checkpoint inhibitors. No adverse side effects. They say it could signal a paradigm shift in cancer treatment. What might this mean for those of us living with mbc? Would love to hear your thoughts, the good, the bad, and all points inbetween

https://www.npr.org/2022/06/07/1103545361/cancer-drug-experimental-rectal-chemotherapy-surgery-treatment-immunotherapy

Anonymous

Well, its obviously interesting but Im assuming they mean primary tumors disappeared? None of these people had mets?

At the very least its NOT mice models and its actual humans! So that bodes well and hey, if it works for at least one subset of cancer patients and they can figure out how to engineer the mechanism for breast or others, then thats a win. Even if they can't then at least a group of cancer patients now have more hope.

NineTwelve

Looks like there may be some hope for the BRCA mutation carriers. Here's a list of clinical trials ongoing with dostarlimab:

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/clinical-trials/intervention/dostarlimab?redirect=true

BevJen

There was a short video on ASCO by the investigator -- if I'm recalling it correctly, she said they were going to trial with other types of cancer. We know that these drugs don't always do well with other types of cancer but at least they are going to look.

50sgirl

I do hope that this drug performs well for many types of cancer. I am reluctant to get too excited since the test population was so small. I read another article that stated that the drug only works for patients who have the genetic mutations called mismatch repair deficiency (MMRd), it makes the cells more receptive to immunotherapy. Only 5 to 10% of patients have that mutation. In spite of that, I will remain hopeful.

Anonymous

I'm with SondraF, at least the results are with humans and not mice ! Hoping it will help breast cancer and all cancer ! Happy to see they are running trials. I have a repair deficiency but it's not MMrd.

DivineMrsM

It's getting a lot of press. An acquaintance posted something about the new drug on FB, she is not a cancer survivor nor is anyone in her family. She just thought it was “hope for cancer patients!" (She ends every! single! sentence! with an exclamation point!) I do not think the average person gets that there are so many different kinds of cancer and that one drug does not come in and wipe them all out. Also, as was mentioned, this was not cancer that had spread, it was contained. And it was 18 people.

So, sure, the FB woman didn't grasp all the nuances, but I was at the hospital today and the nuclear medicine tech who said she was a breast cancer survivor was going on and on about the dostarlimab news and said it was used on colorectal and breast cancer (wrong) and given to people who had no other treatments options available to them (which I took meant stage iv and had gone through everything else, also wrong). It rather irritated me because she was sensationalizing the whole thing and she's a medical professional! On the other hand, I think she was trying to offer positive news since I am living with mbc. I must look gullible.

Anyway, I appreciate the responses here. I wonder how the treatment will continue to unfold.

Anonymous

Yeah, the Daily Mail here in the UK grouped this news with the Enhertu news and its the usual quarterly HOPE FOR CANCER PATIENTS and ARE WE CLOSE TO ERADICATING CANCER FOR GOOD? article. Uh, why don't we focus on better prevention and early diagnostics in this country instead of clinging to blind wishes, but what do I know.

Its ASCO season, these articles come out as a result of PR pushes by the companies. But let's at least celebrate SOME progress - better than having nothing interesting to talk about or a disappointing airball of a treatment fail (what was the more recent one - the oral SERD?)

ParakeetsRule

I'm happy to see any new advance but it's basically in one ear and out the other. I don't want to pin my hopes on anything, especially something so early and so specific to a single uncommon subtype of only one type of cancer that I don't have.

Anonymous

It is great news for rectal cancer pts and still only for 5 - 10% of those. But its a stretch to think it is going to work on large numbers of people with other cancers.

DivineMrsM

Is it a stretch, tho? If scientists have tapped into something that works for colorectal cancer, certainly they will go on to tweak the approach, the process, for other cancers. According to the article I linked above: This drug is one of a class of drugs called immune checkpoint inhibitors. These are immunotherapy medicines that work not by directly attacking the cancer itself, but actually getting a person's immune system to essentially do the work. These are drugs that have been around in melanoma and other cancers for quite a while, but really have not been part of the routine care of colorectal cancers until fairly recently.

When Herceptin trials produced great results in trials in 1992, it eventually went on to become a game-changer for triple positive bc patients. In 1994, Dr. Angela Brodie was successful in bringing aromatase inhibitors forward as a treatment for bc.

I just let myself think for a little bit about how exciting it would be for cancer patients to be able to take a drug for six months that was easily tolerated and which eradicated their cancer. Without chemo, rads or surgery. It may not happen in my lifetime but still, it is interesting to consider what that could mean for millions of people.

Anonymous

I agree DivineMrsM - SOME mechanism is working here and if they can figure out how/why and extrapolate then that really could be game changing for everyone.

DivineMrsM

Sondra, the approach is probably being looked at or in trials for other diseases apart from cancer.

Nine Twelve, thank you for providing a link about other trials using dostarlimab. I'm reposting it to make it clickable. 21 trials are listed:

Clinical Trials Using Dostarlimab

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/clin...

BevJen

divinemrsm,

The problem is, to my knowledge, that immunotherapy has not yet been found to work on BC. Keytruda was supposed to be a wonder drug, too, and it is for some cancers. But BC notoriously evades this technology. I was on keytruda and it did nothing for me. I felt great for those 3 months but then I seriously progressed.

Great thought, but probably in the future.