A novel treatment for rectal cancer has been created by Israeli scientists.
A recent study by researchers at the Davidoff Comprehensive Cancer Center revealed that the novel treatment created at the facility enabled 65 percent of patients with rectal cancer be cured and avoided the necessity for surgery in the majority of them.
The most cutting-edge pre-operative chemo-radiation therapy combined with immunotherapy may greatly improve the prognosis and prevent surgery, according to a study led by Professor Baruch Brenner, head of the Gastrointestinal Oncology Unit and Oncology Department at the Davidoff Comprehensive Cancer Center at Beilinson Hospital.
According to the study’s preliminary findings, many of the patients did not require surgery, and in 65 percent of them, the rectal tumors vanished after starting the new therapeutic approach.
Under the direction of Prof. Brenner and his colleagues, the study will now be expanded into a multi-center investigation that will be carried out in a number of hospitals in Germany and Israel.
About 25% of instances of colon cancer are rectal cancer, which is typically detected when it is locally advanced and necessitates multidisciplinary care.
Surgery is typically used as part of the treatment plan when the cancer has not spread. However, the patient’s quality of life is frequently severely compromised following surgery to remove rectal tumors.
According to Brenner, “this research is very promising and can change how rectal cancer is treated globally.”
The outcomes show that this novel therapeutic strategy may be able to remove the tumor without surgery, improving the patient’s quality of life after remission. The results of this study suggest that, even if research on this topic is still in its early stages, including immunotherapy in preoperative care can increase the likelihood that the tumor will vanish.
At the European Society of Medical Oncology Gastrointestinal (ESMO GI) meeting, which was recently held in Munich, Germany, the results were presented.
The first cancer hospital in Israel is called the Davidoff Comprehensive Cancer Center, and it is a part of the Beilinson Medical Center in Petach Tikvah. Every year, the institution treats one in seven Israeli patients with a diagnosis of hematological or solid cancer.
