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Led the study in which every patient with mismatch-repair-deficient rectal cancer had a complete response to dostarlimab, without surgery or radiation.
Medical oncologist whose 2022 NEJM study of neoadjuvant dostarlimab in dMMR locally advanced rectal cancer produced a 100% clinical complete response rate, later extended to over 100 patients across dMMR solid tumours and now the basis of the AZUR-1 registrational programme. Co-directs MSK's young-onset colorectal cancer centre.
| Title | Journal | Year |
|---|---|---|
| PD-1 blockade in mismatch repair-deficient, locally advanced rectal cancer | New England Journal of Medicine | 2022 |
| Nonoperative management of mismatch repair-deficient tumors | New England Journal of Medicine | 2025 |
For mismatch repair-deficient rectal cancer, six months of a single antibody now replaces chemotherapy, radiotherapy and an operation, and the same appears to be true for early-stage mismatch repair-deficient cancers of other organs.
The numbers behind the argument that the screening programme is working for the people it covers and failing everyone below its start age; the stage shift going into reverse is the most uncomfortable figure on this roadmap.
The first United States approval of a HER2-directed regimen in colorectal cancer, and the basis for MOUNTAINEER-03, which is testing the combination with chemotherapy in the first line.
Cercek's dostarlimab study is the clearest demonstration that immunotherapy can replace surgery in a solid tumour: patients with dMMR rectal cancer can keep their rectum and avoid the permanent effects of pelvic radiotherapy and surgery. Non-operative management after PD-1 blockade is now in guidelines for this group, and MMR testing before treatment of rectal cancer is essential. The approach applies only to the 5-10% of rectal cancers that are dMMR.
Organ preservation became a plan rather than an accident: consolidation chemotherapy after chemoradiotherapy gives the best chance of keeping the rectum, and salvage surgery after regrowth does not appear to cost survival.
It turned sidedness from an epidemiological curiosity into a mechanistic statement, and it is the reason a wild-type mitogenic report on a left-sided tumour is read as ligand dependence rather than as an absence.
Shares Organ preservation in patients with rectal adenocarcinoma treated with total neoadjuvant therapy (OPRA), Randomise organ preservation against surgery in mismatch repair-proficient rectal cancer, with bowel function as a co-primary endpoint, Cercek 2022: six months of dostarlimab alone made rectal cancer disappear in every patient with mismatch-repair deficiency, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Shares Cercek 2022: six months of dostarlimab alone made rectal cancer disappear in every patient with mismatch-repair deficiency, Dostarlimab, Mismatch-repair deficient (MSI-high) colorectal cancer, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Shares Organ preservation in patients with rectal adenocarcinoma treated with total neoadjuvant therapy (OPRA), Randomise organ preservation against surgery in mismatch repair-proficient rectal cancer, with bowel function as a co-primary endpoint, Cercek 2022: six months of dostarlimab alone made rectal cancer disappear in every patient with mismatch-repair deficiency, Colorectal cancer roadmap: from the adenoma-carcinoma sequence and the first screening trials to total mesorectal excision, oxaliplatin, RAS testing, immunotherapy for mismatch repair-deficient disease, ctDNA-guided treatment and organ preservation.
Shares AZUR-1, Nonoperative management of mismatch repair-deficient tumors, Organ preservation in patients with rectal adenocarcinoma treated with total neoadjuvant therapy (OPRA), Randomise organ preservation against surgery in mismatch repair-proficient rectal cancer, with bowel function as a co-primary endpoint.
Shares Dostarlimab, Mismatch-repair deficient (MSI-high) colorectal cancer, Rectal cancer, Colorectal cancer.
Shares AZUR-1, Dostarlimab, Colorectal cancer roadmap: from the adenoma-carcinoma sequence and the first screening trials to total mesorectal excision, oxaliplatin, RAS testing, immunotherapy for mismatch repair-deficient disease, ctDNA-guided treatment and organ preservation, Colorectal cancer.
Shares AZUR-1, Dostarlimab, Mismatch-repair deficient (MSI-high) colorectal cancer, Colorectal cancer.
Shares Dostarlimab, Mismatch-repair deficient (MSI-high) colorectal cancer, Rectal cancer, Immune checkpoint inhibitors.