Dr. Dino PratoEnvita Medical Centers · Founder and CEO at Envita Medical Centers

PD-1 inhibitors may help — but sometimes they’re only buying time #shorts

18 Mar 2026 · 1 min

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In this short video, Dino Prato explains that many targeted cancer drugs aimed at common oncogenic drivers (CRAS, GFR, BRAF, LK, MET, EGFR) are primarily cytostatic—they slow tumor growth rather than kill cancer cells. He warns that these therapies merely buy time and stresses the need to harness the patient’s immune system, such as with PD‑1 inhibitors, to achieve actual tumor killing. Prato argues that precision oncology should be personalized to the individual’s immune context, not solely based on a genetic marker, and that the right combination of immune‑engaging treatments with targeted agents is essential for true therapeutic benefit.

Chapters

If you're a cancer patient and you're given one of these stubborn genes—CRAS, GFR, BRAF, LK, MET, EGFR—this is going to help slow things down. But here's a problem: the majority of these drugs, they actually do not kill the cancer. They slow it down. They're cytostatic, not cytotoxic. They're buying time. So what are you going to do with the time? The key is to get your immune system involved so that not only are you slowing the cancer down, but you're killing it. It's not being trapped in just a new smart drug that your oncologist put you on, but using the right combinations with precision to make it work better. That's what precision oncology is, and it's building it on you, not just on a genetic marker.