Targeted cancer treatments are showing amazing early results.
Recent early studies in cancer treatment are giving doctors and patients new hope. Two small but important studies show that targeted therapies can completely get rid of hard-to-treat cancers.
In 2022, a study looked at how well dostarlimab, a type of immunotherapy, worked on people with rectal cancer that didn’t have mismatch repair. Genetic changes in this type of cancer make it react differently to treatment. Incredible, all 12 patients in the study went into complete remission, which means their tumors went away. Even better, many of these patients were still cancer-free years later, which shows that the benefits could last.
Another promising trial in 2025 looked at PMB-CT01 CAR-T therapy for B-cell lymphoma, which is a kind of blood cancer. In CAR-T therapy, a person’s own immune cells are reprogrammed to attack cancer cells. This is a type of cell-based treatment. In this small phase 1 trial, all 7 patients went into remission, meaning that their cancers went away after treatment.
Even though these studies only included a few patients, they are a good sign of progress. Chemotherapy and radiation, which are common cancer treatments, can be very harsh and don’t always work. Dostarlimab and CAR-T therapy are examples of targeted therapies that treat cancer more precisely by attacking cancer cells while leaving healthy tissue alone.
Researchers are excited because these early successes show that treatments that are tailored to each patient and based on their immune system could change the way cancer is treated in the future. There are now larger trials going on to confirm these results in more people.
These breakthroughs give patients and their families hope. They point to a future where cancer treatment could be more effective, less harmful, and better suited to each patient.
