Cancer Cured Through Immunotherapy! Is Treatment In India

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The News

Cancer is a disease in which some of the body’s cells grow uncontrollably and spread to other parts of the body.
Cancer can start almost anywhere in the human body, which is made up of trillions of cells. Cancer cells differ from normal cells.

In a medical trial, results of which were published recently, 12 patients in the United States were completely cured of rectal cancer without requiring any surgery or chemotherapy.
The trial used a monoclonal antibody called DOSTARLIMAB every three weeks for six months for the treatment of a particular kind of stage two or three rectal cancer.
The study was done by doctors from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York, and its results have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The trial showed that immunotherapy alone – without any chemotherapy, radiotherapy, or surgery could completely cure the patients with a particular kind of rectal cancer called ‘mismatch repair deficient’ cancer”.

PD1 is a type of protein that regulates certain functions of the immune system, including by suppressing T cell activity.
PD1 blockade therapy looks to release the T cells from this suppression.
The anomalies in the DNA result in cancerous growths in patients with mismatch repair deficient cancers which is not rectified by immune system.
In this mode of treatment, PD1 blockade is suppressed so that T cell can act and remove cancer cells.

The immunotherapy process is not new..!!

However, earlier, this therapy was used post-surgery, but the current study has shown that a surgery may not be required at all…!!
The biggest advantage of this is eliminating other treatments which can improve a patient’s quality of life by preserving fertility, sexual health, and bladder and bowel functions.

Cost is major hurdle in this treatment. The problem with immunotherapies is that they are expensive and unaffordable for most people in India.
A normal genetic test itself can cost up to Rs 30,000. An immunotherapy treatment can cost around Rs 4 lakh per month, with patients needing the treatment for six months to a year. People may end up using their life-savings for the treatment.
Moreover, precision medicine techniques like immunotherapy drugs are still at a nascent stage in India. It would take at least a decade for it to become common treatment.