Are there cancers where surgery may be entirely avoided? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Genetic analysis of most cancers is becoming more commonplace, and now identification of one specific mutation called a mismatch repair may allow people to avoid surgery entirely. Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center director William Nelson explains.

Nelson: What they started to see early on was when they used these immune checkpoint inhibitors the cancers completely disappeared and they were able to think for a minute and decided to see how long they proceed or could they proceed indefinitely without doing any other treatment, without surgery, without chemotherapy and radiation. This is a more extensive cohort of folks where they treated this way. They all got six months before a surgery that they may have otherwise had or surgery chemotherapy kind of thing. The rectal cancer ones I think that 49 of them all of them had the cancer completely disappear.  :32

Since these surgeries can be life-altering being able to avoid that intervention entirely results in much better quality of life. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.