New treatment for men with terminal cancer offers promising results in a significant advancement

A groundbreaking cancer treatment hailed as a ‘holy grail’ is offering fresh hope to patients previously given just months to live.

Researchers in California conducted a study involving 15 men with advanced prostate cancer, a condition similar to that of former president Joe Biden.

The treatment included freezing the tumors with liquid nitrogen, followed by administering a potent mix of drugs to activate the immune system and eliminate the cancer cells.

Out of the 15 patients, 53% (eight individuals) achieved complete remission of their cancer. Five patients experienced significant tumor reduction, while two patients had their disease growth halted. None of the participants had their cancer worsen during the study period.

Doctors involved in the study underlined how sick the patients were, saying 13 had cancers that had spread to their bones and, in every case, their disease had not responded to standard treatments.

In stage four prostate cancer, the median survival rate is just two to three years. Only a third of people make it to five years. But, in this study, nine in 10 patients are still alive after 14 months.

Dr Jason Williams, the scientist who pioneered the therapy and who was involved in the study, told the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview that he felt the results were ‘really impressive’ and underlined the effectiveness of the therapy.

He said: ‘These results were really good, even in those patients who were metastatic, patients who were heavily treated and failed all other immunotherapies, and basically had nothing left.’

Eric White, then 49, (pictured above with wife Megan) blamed the pain he was experiencing in his testicles on hours spent on a forklift. Turned out he had prostate cancer. 

When White started experiencing testicular pain at the age of 49, he blamed it on spending hours at a time operating a forklift at work

‘If we got more healthy patients, patients before they were treated, it is likely that our results would be even better. But, of course, the fact our results are already so good says a lot,’ he added. 

Doctors said the experimental therapy works because it is able to ‘harness the immune system’, prompting it to hunt out and destroy cancer cells in the body.

For the treatment – known as SYNC-T – doctors initially freeze part of the tumor in the prostate to kill the cancerous cells.

This is done by inserting a needle into the tumor, and then either injecting it with liquid nitrogen or blasting it with rapid electrical pulses (These are quick and painless to the patient).

The tumor is then left to thaw for about ten minutes, before it is injected with a cocktail of four immunotherapy drugs.

Patients are injected with about 15 milliliters of the mix, which is called SV-102 and includes two monoclonal antibody drugs, at a pace of about three milliliters a minute.

Researchers said this further triggers the immune system, helping it to identify and then hunt out and destroy cancer cells throughout the body.

The therapy was granted fast track designation by the FDA in July last year, expediting the process to approve the drug.

The study was revealed at ASCO 2025, the largest cancer conference in the world being held in Chicago, Illinois, and prompted gasps from members of the audience.

One member was quick to call it potentially the ‘holy grail’ of cancer treatments, while a second simply uttered ‘damn’ when the results were revealed.

Former President Joe Biden posted a smiling selfie to X in mid-May alongside wife and former first lady Jill Biden, who had a somber expression and was holding their gray tabby cat Willow. Biden has revealed he has been diagnosed with ‘aggressive’ prostate cancer

CANCER-FREE: Doctor Larry Boyer, a father-of-two from Connecticut, was given just six months to live after he was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. But after receiving a similar therapy to the prostate cancer patients in this study, he is still alive

The therapy involved injecting liquid nitrogen to freeze tumors, followed by a powerful cocktail of drugs that trigger the immune system to destroy cancer

Joe Biden, 82, revealed last month that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that had already spread to his bones. In comments last week, he told reporters he ‘feels good’ and expects to ‘be able to beat this’.

Dr Williams claimed his therapy could be offered to patients like Biden.

‘We know that they have the information on our trial,’ he said. ‘So they [Biden’s medical team] have seen it, and, hopefully, they can make a decision, because he clearly has advanced prostate cancer, and this is an advanced treatment option.’

In the study, patients were aged 60 on average – with a range from 49 to 74. Nine of the patients were white, five were Hispanic and one was black.

Ten had previously received hormone therapy to treat their cancer, while five had been refused the therapy. 

Three, or 20 percent, had completed a course of chemotherapy, while five, or 33 percent, had received radiation. Two, or 13 percent, had undergone immunotherapy.

Each patient received up to 12 cycles of the therapy, which was administered once every four weeks.

Patients also underwent full-body MRI and PET scans every eight weeks, allowing doctors to track the progression of their tumors.

On average, patients had elevated levels of immune cells that fight tumors in their blood within 24 hours of their first cycle of the treatment.

Side effects such as fevers were recorded, which the scientists said was likely to have been triggered by a surge in immune system activity. There were no major adverse events recorded, the report showed. 

In one case, a patient saw all 50 cancerous growths in their bones disappear after receiving the treatment. 

The above shows the survival rate for prostate cancer. It drops when it is diagnosed at a later stage

Mrs White recently revealed her husband had 18 more rounds of radiation to the mass in his pelvis and he is now undergoing chemotherapy.

The patients in the study had metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, meaning their cancer had spread to other areas of the body and hormone therapy was no longer effective in controlling its growth.

Dr Williams has urged other doctors to adopt his method of injecting immunotherapy drugs directly into the tumor instead of systemically, or into the blood stream, as is standard practice.

He said: ‘Hopefully, this is going to open people’s eyes.

‘Doctor’s say, you think putting medication in tumors is going to work, and I say, that’s like saying if you’ve got a house on fire, do you think you should put the water on that house or on another one nearby’.

The therapy has also been used to treat other cancers in cases previously reported by the Daily Mail.

These include a doctor suffering from pancreatic cancer who had been told he had just six months to live and a mother-of-five given 24 months to live after her stage four breast cancer spread ‘everywhere’.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men in the US, with about 236,000 men diagnosed with the disease every year.

Age is the biggest risk factor for the disease, with one in eight men being diagnosed with the disease during their lifetimes. Those aged 70 and over have about a 50:50 risk of developing the disease, studies suggest.