Bowel cancer or cancer in the colon erectum is the second leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide

killing nearly 1 million people a year and cases of colorectal cancer have been on the

rise especially among those younger than 50. cases of colorectal cancer have been on the rise,

especially among those younger than 50.

But there are glimmers of hope for patients

with a certain type of bowel cancer

in two separate studies, one in the United States

and a more recent one in Britain.

Each found that using immunotherapy drugs before surgery

dramatically increased the chance of curing bowel cancer

in patients with a certain genetic profile.

Dr Vikram Reddy is chief of colon and rectal surgery at the Yale School of Medicine.

He's not affiliated or connected with either of these studies.

Dr. Reddy, how potentially potentially how big a deal is this?

So this is a huge deal for us because it's a new category of medications that we can use to

treat patients with bio cancers. And immunotherapy drugs, tell us what is

immunotherapy and how does it work? So immunotherapy is different from

conventional chemotherapy. So immunotherapy actually augments and uses your own immune system

to fight the cancers.

Whereas the old conventional chemotherapy,

we were targeting the cancer cells and killing them with drugs. And are immunotherapy drugs used in other types of cancer?

Oh yeah, immunotherapy drugs have been used in other kinds of cancers for a while.

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