Cancer therapy evolves every year, and the latest efforts focus on harnessing the body’s immune system to fight the disease. But these approaches have generally been used together with traditional strategies like surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation. Until now.
Dr. Andrea Cercek, section head of colorectal cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, is pioneering a new therapy that relies on using immunotherapy drugs alone to help patients with certain types of cancer avoid surgery. Last year, she announced stunning results from a small study of people with a specific rectal cancer; after six months of receiving infusions of dostarlimab, a drug that allows the immune cells to recognize and target cancer cells, all of the patients no longer showed detectable tumors on imaging or other tests. In 2025, Cercek expanded those results to patients with other cancers—in the esophagus, colon, stomach, urothelial tissue, small bowel, and endometrium. In the latest trial, more than 90% of patients showed no detectable signs of cancer after two years. “That’s an exciting number,” says Cercek. Even those who did not reach a complete response saw their tumors shrink to some extent. “The bottom line is everyone showed benefit.”
The next step is to continue following the patients to see if the immunotherapy helps them live longer than those who do get treated with surgery. Cercek expects that introducing this treatment as early as possible in the disease will lead to the greatest benefit and pave the way for more patients to receive a potent therapy that doesn’t come with the risks of surgery. “This type of therapy can lead to significant, complete clinical responses, and significant improvement in the quality of life of patients,” she says.