Quick Take
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Emma Dimery, diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer in 2013, has recovered.
After nearly a decade of treatments, she enrolled in a clinical trial in 2022.
The trial at the University of Minnesota used experimental genetic therapy.
A Minnesota woman has made a miraculous recovery from Stage 4 colon cancer after she underwent a ‘last-resort’ clinical treatment, having suffered from the disease for nearly a decade. Emma Dimery was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2013 when she was only 23 years old. Upon undergoing a colonoscopy, doctors revealed that Ms Dimery had a “softball-sized” and a “golf ball-sized” tumour.
“They found a softball- and golf ball-sized tumour in my colon. They can only say for sure that it was Stage 3 at that point, but there could have been a pretty good chance it could have already been Stage 4,” she told Today.
Diagnosed with Stage 4 colorectal cancer, Ms Dimery underwent chemotherapy, radiation and other combination therapies — none of which seemingly worked.
“I was basically treading water, doing immunotherapy every other week for probably four years or so,” said Ms Dimery, adding that she was “out of options”.
Just when all seemed lost, she learned of a clinical trial at the University of Minnesota that could help her. Excited, Ms Dimery enrolled and underwent the therapy in late 2022 and the beginning of 2023. The clinical trial was being led by Dr Emil Lou, who tested an experimental genetic therapy, currently being dubbed as the “next frontier of immunotherapy”.
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‘Unexpected news’
Two months after she completed the study, Ms Dimery received the unexpected news. She had been cured.
“There was no evidence of disease. It was amazing. My whole adult life up to that point I was pretty much a cancer patient.”
As per Dr Lou, while most immunotherapies target the outside of cells, his study targeted the insides of cells using “CRISPR gene editing”.
“Some of the targets inside the cell are preventing the immune system from activating against the cancer. It’s kind of like a shield that protects the cancer cell from the body’s immune system.”
“In Emma’s case, it succeeded in eliminating any evidence of the cancer she had been dealing with for nearly a decade.”
Two years after the trial, Ms Dimery says she’s doing “really well”. She added that the trial has changed the way she thinks of cancer.