Israeli hospital develops new treatment for rectal cancer, effectively eliminating the cancer in nearly two-thirds of patients and removing need for surgery in most others.
The Davidoff Comprehensive Cancer Center, Israel’s only cancer hospital, recently conducted a study showing that a new treatment developed by the center’s researchers helped to eliminate rectal cancer in 65 percent of patients and prevented the need for surgery in most of them.
Rectal cancer makes up about 25 percent of colon cancer cases and is usually discovered when it is in a locally advanced state therefore requiring multidisciplinary treatment.
In a case of rectal cancer which has not metastasized, the treatment usually includes surgery.
However, surgery to remove rectal tumors often result in severe damage to the patient’s quality of life and sometimes, surgeons need to resect the anus itself. Therefore, avoiding such surgeries is important for many patients.
A new study led by Professor Baruch Brenner, director of the Oncology Department and the Gastrointestinal Oncology Unit at the Davidoff Comprehensive Cancer Center at Beilinson Hospital, found that a combination of immunotherapy and the most advanced form of pre-operative chemo-radiation therapy may significantly increase the chances of curing the disease and avoiding surgery.
Preliminary results from the study found that in 65 percent of the patients the rectal tumors disappeared following the new therapeutic method and many of them did not need to undergo surgery.
As a result of the success of the study, it will now be extended to a multi-center study which will be conducted in several hospitals in Israel and Germany, led by Prof. Brenner and his team.
“This research is very promising and can change how rectal cancer is treated globally,” said Prof. Brenner.
“The results indicate the potential of this new therapeutic approach to help get rid of the tumor in a non-surgical way which increases the patient’s quality of life once in remission.”
“Although we are still in the research stages, evidence from this study indicates that combining immunotherapy in the preoperative treatment can indeed improve the chance of the tumor disappearing.”
The results were shared at the European Society of Medical Oncology Gastrointestinal (ESMO GI) conference recently held in Munich, Germany.
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