The combination of immunotherapy and traditional chemotherapy to treat potentially deadly advanced endometrial cancer resulted in a significant reduction in disease growth when compared to chemotherapy alone. For the study, published in the online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at the University of California San Diego treated patients with Stage III or Stage IV endometrial cancer with the drug pembrolizumab, sold under the brand name Keytruda, along with chemotherapy.

This is the same immunotherapy drug that helped former president Jimmy Carter beat an aggressive form of skin cancer in 2015, says STAT News. According to UC San Diego Health, endometrial cancer, a cancer that begins in the lining of the uterus, is one of the few cancers with a rising incidence and death rate. Currently, there are more than 60,000 cases diagnosed in the U.S. each year. Symptoms include vaginal bleeding or spotting, pelvic pain, bloating, or a change in bowel or bladder habits.

Experts predict that by 2040 it will be the third most prevalent cancer and the fourth leading cause of cancer death among women. In the past four decades there have been limited advances in treatments for this dreaded disease. The latest study may change the face of treatment.

“These results may transform the way we care for patients with advanced stage or recurrent/advanced uterine cancer. Currently chemotherapy alone is used in the first-line treatment for patients with this disease,” said Dr. Ramez N. Eskander, associate professor in the department of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at UC San Diego School of Medicine, and the principal investigator of the study. “It is critical that we work to identify effective and innovative treatments and combination therapies, such as immunotherapy and chemotherapy, to attack the cancer and give patients more time to live their lives fully.”

Researchers divided 816 study participants into two groups according to the subset of endometrial cancer they had. One group had deficient mismatch repair (dMMR) in which the genetic pathway isn’t working properly. The second group had proficient mismatch repair (pMMR) in which the pathway is active. The groups were treated with immunotherapy along with chemotherapy, or with chemotherapy alone.

After 12 months, the dMMR group experienced a 70% reduction in the risk of disease growth when receiving both immunotherapy and chemotherapy. The pMMR group who received both treatments  had a 46% reduction in the risk of disease growth.

“These are exciting results that are both statistically significant and reflective of a clinically meaningful benefit,” said Eskander. The researcher says the next step is to gain approval from the Food and Drug Administration to implement the new treatment approach as a standard practice, says UC Diego Health.