Short Pre-Surgery Immunotherapy Shows Long-Term Success in Colorectal Cancer Patients

Wed, 06 May 2026 17:35:00 +0200

A UK-led clinical trial has demonstrated that a brief course of immunotherapy before surgery can produce remarkable outcomes for patients with stage two or three colorectal cancer. The NEOPRISM-CRC study administered nine weeks of pembrolizumab to patients with a specific genetic subtype of colorectal cancer (MMR-deficient/MSI-high) prior to surgery. Early results showed that 59% of participants had no detectable cancer after treatment and surgery. Now, after 33 months of follow-up, none of the patients have experienced cancer recurrence, contrasting sharply with the typical 25% relapse rate seen in standard care involving surgery followed by chemotherapy. Researchers also developed personalized blood tests to detect residual cancer DNA, which may help predict treatment success and guide therapy decisions. The findings provide new insights into the long-term effectiveness of immunotherapy, as patients whose tumor DNA disappeared from the blood were highly likely to remain cancer-free.