Bowel cancer “melted away” after immunotherapy, then stayed away
A clinical trial led by UCL researchers found that a short course of the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab before surgery resulted in long-term cancer control for bowel cancer patients. After 33 months, none of the trial participants experienced a recurrence of the disease.
Why it matters
This treatment approach could significantly improve survival rates and reduce the need for aggressive post-operative chemotherapy in bowel cancer patients.
Patients with a particular form of bowel cancer remained free of recurrence for almost three years after receiving a short course of immunotherapy before surgery, according to new findings from the NEOPRISM-CRC clinical trial led by researchers at UCL and UCLH.
The results, which are due to be presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2026 in April, extend earlier findings from the trial. Those initial results showed that nine weeks of treatment with the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab before surgery caused major tumor shrinkage in people with stage two or three bowel cancer.
Earlier data showed that 59% of patients had no detectable signs of disease after pembrolizumab treatment and their planned bowel cancer surgery.
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in