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NewsZero recurrences in nearly three years — that's the remarkable result from the NEOPRISM-CRC trial, where 32 patients with a specific genetic form of bowel cancer received pembrolizumab before surgery instead of post-op chemo. Not a single patient relapsed after 33 months of follow-up, compared to the ~25% relapse rate expected with standard treatment. Personalized blood tests may soon help doctors predict who benefits most.
A small but striking clinical trial is turning heads in oncology: every single patient with a genetically specific form of bowel cancer remained cancer-free for nearly three years after receiving a short course of immunotherapy before surgery. The NEOPRISM-CRC trial, led by researchers at UCL and UCLH, gave 32 patients with MMR-deficient/MSI-high stage 2 or 3 bowel cancer up to nine weeks of pembrolizumab before their surgery — skipping the usual post-operative chemotherapy. After 33 months of follow-up, zero patients had experienced a recurrence.
That's a stark contrast to the standard approach, where roughly 25% of patients relapse within three years. Even patients who still had small traces of disease after treatment saw no growth or spread during follow-up. The results were presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2026 in San Diego.
Key Takeaways:
Why it matters: This trial suggests that for a specific subset of bowel cancer patients, pre-surgical immunotherapy may offer far more durable protection than conventional chemotherapy — and emerging blood-based biomarkers could help clinicians tailor treatment decisions with greater precision.
