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Anyone else have Anal cancer: What treatments did you have?
Colorectal Cancer | Last Active: Nov 18 7:41pm | Replies (47)Comment receiving replies
There is a new trial with an immunotherapy drug dostarlimab, drug maker GSK, trial performed at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer- instead of using standard treatment, chemo, radiation, surgery, it proved to be successful with getting rid of tumors-
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2404512
from a New York Times article, 4/27/2025:
"It is approved as a treatment for uterine cancers with mismatch repair mutations and is included in clinical guidelines for the treatment of rectal cancer, based on an earlier small study."
the article may be behind a paywall/subscribers
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/27/health/cancer-immunotherapy-solid-tumors.html
Replies to "There is a new trial with an immunotherapy drug dostarlimab, drug maker GSK, trial performed at..."
I am recently diagnosed with Stage 3 and am expected to start radiation & chemo treatment in December. I don't sleep much since the diagnosis and have spent a lot of time looking things up online. I have been so taken aback by the options - it seems like the protocol was created in the 1980's and we're all supposed to roll with it. I asked my surgical oncologist yesterday why I couldn't choose to simply remove everything and have a colostomy bag. Maybe some chemo since it has spread but that's it. I'd rather poo in a permanent bag than on myself, damage my hips, have incontinence, etc. He said no one has ever asked him that. The James at OSU offers an online 2nd opinion (Dana Farber does, too, but it cost several thousand versus OSU's flat fee of $800.) My family is putting the money together to So when I saw your post I looked into it. There IS a small subset of anal tumors that have mismatch repair mutations. I don't know if Memorial Sloan would accept an anal cancer patient into their study, but maybe. The problem would be that my current team has never talked about or mentioned genetic testing of the tumor. I'm guessing most people being treated out of local hospitals have not.
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Cannot read due to pay wall, but if it is for rectal cancer, that is not the same thing as anal cancer. Two different causes.