The patients involved in the study all had a type of rectal cancer that tends to be resistant to chemotherapy and radiation and is known as mismatch repair-deficient rectal cancer.As part of the study, which was published in theResearchers wrote:"At the time of this report, no patients had received chemoradiotherapy or undergone surgery, and no cases of progression or recurrence had been reported during follow-up.
"The results enabled us to omit both chemoradiotherapy and surgery and to proceed with observation alone." They added that the results now need to be replicated on a much larger scale though before the treatment can hailed as a miracle cure. "Although the results of our study are promising, especially given that 12 consecutive patients all had a clinical complete response, the study is small and represents the experience of a single institution," they wrote.