On September 12, 2025, a five-year follow-up study led by Professor Deng Yanhong from the Department of Oncology at the Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University was published in eClinicalMedicine, a subsidiary journal of The Lancet.
This represents the first globally reported five-year follow-up results in the field of neoadjuvant immunotherapy for dMMR/MSI-H colorectal cancer. The study findings revealed that patients not only achieved an impressive 100% five-year survival rate after receiving neoadjuvant immunotherapy with toripalimab ± celecoxib, but also maintained an excellent quality of life during the long-term follow-up period.
Colorectal cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors worldwide, with approximately 15% of cases belonging to the "mismatch repair-deficient (dMMR)" or "microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H)" subtype. Due to their high tumor mutational burden and abundant immune cell infiltration, these patients are highly sensitive to PD-1 monoclonal antibodies.
The PICC trial is the world's first prospective clinical trial to explore neoadjuvant treatment with a PD-1 inhibitor alone or in combination with celecoxib for locally advanced dMMR/MSI-H colorectal cancer.
The newly released five-year follow-up results further demonstrate the long-term value of this neoadjuvant immunotherapy regimen. No disease recurrence was observed during the follow-up period, with the five-year overall survival rates reaching 100% in the combination group and 94% in the monotherapy group.
Furthermore, quality of life assessments conducted three years after surgery indicated that both patient groups reported high quality of life scores (QLQ-C30, QLQ-CR29) along with relatively low symptom burdens.
Reporter | Luo Shuxin (intern), Chen Jinxia
Editor | Hu Nan, James Campion, Shen He
