21/10/2025
🆕 hope for advanced bowel cancer ✨
The recently published STELLAR-303 trial has brought some 🌟 encouraging news 🌟 for people living with stage 4 (advanced) colorectal cancer.
This large international 📖 tested a 🆕 treatment combo — 🧬 Zanzalintinib (tyrosine kinase inhibitor) + Atezolizumab (immunotherapy) — against the standard drug 💊 Regorafenib, which is approved for use in 🇬🇧 NHS and is usually used when first, second and third line treatments have stopped working. It’s important to highlight that the patients included in this study would not normally be candidates for immunotherapy (pMMR, MSS). A total of 901 patients were recruited and randomly allocated to the 🆕 or standard treatment options.
💡 What did it find?
➡️ People given the 🆕 combination had a longer average overall survival than people receiving Regorafenib — 10.9 months vs 9.4 months.
➡️ Interestingly the benefit from the new treatment was considerably greater for patients without spread to the liver — 15·9 months vs 12·7 months.
➡️ Side-effects were similar to other treatments (😴 tiredness, 💨 diarrhoea, 💓 high blood pressure) but were manageable with 👍 medical support.
🔬 Why it matters:
This combination brings immunotherapy and targeted therapy together for the majority of patients (micro satellite stable) — showing real hope for patients who’ve already had several rounds of treatment. It’s another step towards giving people more and better options.
💙 If you’re living with stage 4 bowel cancer, this doesn’t change today’s standard treatment just yet — but it’s a sign of hope that this new therapy may be available in the future. Talk to your oncologist to see if similar clinical trials might be open near you.
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