Two doses before surgery, and the tumour melts: a colon-cancer trial cracks a stubborn type

Some colon cancers shrug off immunotherapy — the drugs that unleash the immune system — almost completely. A Phase 2 trial called UNICORN, published 2 November in Nature Medicine, suggests a way in. Patients with resectable (operable) colon cancer received a short course of two immunotherapy drugs, botensilimab and balstilimab, before surgery. Among patients with the hard-to-treat pMMR type, 36% had a major response — 10% or less of the tumour left alive — and 29% had no viable tumour at all. In the dMMR group, every patient responded majorly. At the February data cutoff there had been no recurrences, and 12-month event-free survival was 100% in both combination groups. A global Phase 3 trial, ROBBIN, is now planned.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation