Key clinical point: Short-course radiotherapy (SCRT) combined with subsequent capecitabine plus oxaliplatin (CAPOX) and camrelizumab followed by delayed surgery showed remarkable pathological complete response (pCR) with manageable toxicity in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC).
Major finding : Overall, 48.1% of patients, including 46.2% patients with proficient mismatch repair tumors and 100% of patients with deficient mismatch repair tumors, achieved pCR. All immune-related adverse events were of grade 1-2, with the most common being reactive cutaneous capillary endothelial proliferation (81.5%).
Study details: Findings are from a single-arm, phase 2 trial including 30 patients with LARC, of which 27 received preoperative SCRT combined with subsequent CAPOX and camrelizumab followed by radical surgery after 1 week.
Disclosures: This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, 2018 National Natural Science Foundation of China, and Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals Co., Ltd. T Zhang declared receiving research funding from and Z Hou and C Ma declared being employees of Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals Co., Ltd.
Source: Lin Z et al. J Immunother Cancer. 2021 Nov 1. doi: 10.1136/jitc-2021-003554 .