What happened: According to The New York Times, an experimental drug appeared to cure rectal cancer in an unprecedented study. A group of 18 patients took the drug Dostarlimab for about six months, and at the end of it, all of their tumours had vanished. Details: Dr. Luis Diaz, one of the paper’s authors, told the New York Times that he couldn’t recall any prior trial in which cancer was completely eradicated in patients. Diaz continued, “I believe this is the first time this has happened in the history of cancer.” The patients in the study had already undergone arduous treatments such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and, most likely, life-altering surgeries. Why it matters: A complete remission in every single patient, according to Dr. Alan Venook, a colon cancer specialist at the University of California, is “unheard-of.” The absence of major side effects suggested that “either patients did not treat enough patients or, somehow, these malignancies are simply plain different,” according to Venook, who praised the research as a world-first.