A new injectable treatment appears to be doing something that has never been done before: completely eliminating tumors in patients for whom chemotherapy and immunotherapy had already failed. The results came from a large international clinical trial in 11 countries , and experts are not hiding their excitement.
The drug is called amibantamab , and the study focused on 102 patients with head and neck cancer — malignant tumors that develop in the mouth, tongue, throat, or larynx. It is the sixth most common type of cancer worldwide. All of the participants had already tried standard treatments without success — their disease had not responded to either chemotherapy or immunotherapy. For these people, the options were few to none.
The results surprised even the researchers. In 43 of the 102 patients — more than one in three — the tumors shrank or disappeared completely within a few weeks. Specifically, 28 patients experienced a significant reduction , while in 15 cases the tumors disappeared completely . Patients who received the treatment lived an average of 12.5 months after starting treatment — a number that, for this category of disease, is considered extremely significant.
How exactly does it work? The treatment attacks cancer in three ways at once . First, it blocks a protein that helps tumors grow. Second, it blocks the “pathway” that cancer cells use to escape treatments — this is one of the reasons many cancers become resistant. Third, it helps the patient’s own immune system recognize the tumor and attack it. This combination in the same formulation is what makes it different from anything available to date.
Professor Kevin Harrington , an expert in biological therapies, told the Guardian: “These are impressive results in patients with disease that is resistant to both chemotherapy and immunotherapy. This is a group of patients with extremely limited options , so this is a particularly impressive result.” He added that “the treatment has the potential to benefit thousands of patients a year .”
One of the people who gives these numbers a human dimension is Carl Walsh , 56. He was diagnosed with tongue cancer and entered the trial after nothing else had helped. He is now in his 17th cycle of treatment and the change in his life has been radical: “Before I started the trial, I had difficulty speaking properly and eating, due to swelling and pain,” he says. “Since starting treatment, the swelling has decreased significantly and my pain levels have dropped significantly. I no longer experience the severe side effects that affected my daily life during chemotherapy.”
His path to recovery was gradual but steady. In the difficult first months, he ate soup, rice pudding, and omelets — whatever he could swallow. After two cycles of treatment, his condition began to improve, and by six months he was eating everything . “The thing I enjoyed most was the first big steak ,” he says with the calmness of someone who has been through something very difficult and overcome it. His speech has fully recovered, and at work he speaks regularly without any problems. “Now I feel like I can live a normal life .”
One of the things that the researchers highlighted was the tolerability of the treatment. In the majority of patients, side effects were mild to moderate , and fewer than one in ten had to stop treatment. This means that even patients in a weakened state can tolerate it — something crucial when we are talking about people who have already been through heavy treatment regimens.
Of particular note is the fact that the trial focused exclusively on the most difficult cases — head and neck cancers not related to HPV . These tumors are usually much more resistant to any form of treatment, which makes the success even more remarkable. In addition, the researchers found similar results in patients with lung cancer , and amibantib is now being evaluated in about 60 clinical trials for colon, brain and stomach cancers.
Professor Christian Hellin concluded the assessment with a telling statement: “Achieving this level of response and encouraging survival results in such a difficult-to-treat group is a significant step forward .” He doesn’t promise a miracle — but he describes a change that, for thousands of people around the world who have exhausted their treatment options, could mean a second chance.
