Immunotherapy Can Succeed as First Line of Attack Against Solid Tumors

About two to three percent of solid tumor cancer patients have tumors with what is called “mismatch mutations.” Researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering have announced success at using immunotherapy to treat patients with these mutations. Many had their tumors completely disappear. Johns Hopkins oncologist Bert Vogelstein called the results “groundbreaking” (as quoted in Kolata 2025, p. A24).

The cures matter most, but what also matters is that immunotherapy was the first line of treatment, so the patients did not have to suffer the “grisly” side effects that often come with the traditional surgery, radiation, and chemo treatments.

The upside is huge. The downside is that it only works for two to three percent of solid tumor patients, and the drug costs about $100,000 per patient.

Kolata’s article is:

Gina Kolata. “Immunotherapy Drug Spares Cancer Patients From Grisly Treatments.” The New York Times (Weds., April 28, 2025): A24.

(Note: the online version of Kolata’s article has the date April 27, 2025, and has the title “Medicine Spares Cancer Patients From Grisly Surgeries and Harsh Therapies.”)

The academic paper published online in The New England Journal of Medicine is:

Cercek, Andrea, Michael B. Foote, Benoit Rousseau, J. Joshua Smith, Jinru Shia, Jenna Sinopoli, Jill Weiss, Melissa Lumish, Lindsay Temple, Miteshkumar Patel, Callahan Wilde, Leonard B. Saltz, Guillem Argiles, Zsofia Stadler, Oliver Artz, Steven Maron, Geoffrey Ku, Ping Gu, Yelena Y. Janjigian, Daniela Molena, Gopa Iyer, Jonathan Coleman, Wassim Abida, Seth Cohen, Kevin Soares, Mark Schattner, Vivian E. Strong, Rona Yaeger, Philip Paty, Marina Shcherba, Ryan Sugarman, Paul B. Romesser, Alice Zervoudakis, Avni Desai, Neil H. Segal, Imane El Dika, Maria Widmar, Iris Wei, Emmanouil Pappou, Gerard Fumo, Santiago Aparo, Mithat Gonen, Marc Gollub, Vetri S. Jayaprakasam, Tae-Hyung Kim, Julio Garcia Aguilar, Martin Weiser, and Luis A. Diaz. “Nonoperative Management of Mismatch Repair–Deficient Tumors.” The New England Journal of Medicine (April 27, 2025), DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2404512.