Posted on 03/07/2016 8:26:44 AM PST by Nachum
Carter announced in August that he had been diagnosed with melanoma that had spread to his brain and laid out a treatment plan, including a round of targeted radiation at the brain tumors and doses of an immune-boosting drug every three weeks. Keytruda, the drug, was approved not long before Carter's announcement and helps his body seek out and destroy cancer cells.
Carter will continue to receive doses of the drug every three weeks. Here's a story from 2014 on the development team.Carter's spokeswoman Deanna Congileo said in an email that Carter received doses of the drug from August through February. She said his doctors will continue to perform scans to ensure cancer cells have not returned, and Carter will "resume treatment if necessary."
A spokesman for Emory University's Winship Cancer Institute, where Carter has been treated, declined to comment on Sunday, citing patient privacy.
Medical experts have called Keytruda and similar immune therapy drugs "game-changing" for patients with melanoma. But the drugs are relatively new, and doctors are still learning about how they should be used, said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society. He is not involved in Carter's treatment.
"Some people believe they should be continued as long as a patient is doing well, some feel the drugs should continue for a period of time and then be stopped," Lichtenfeld said. "This is clearly a (decision) based on individual evidence specific to the president and made with his doctors."
"This medicine is a miracle cure - it's a real breakthrough," says Prof. Jacob Schachter, head of research and treatment of melanoma and skin cancer at Sheba Medical Center, who is part of the international research team for the medicine.The new treatment comes from the field of immunotherapy, which helps the immune system fight cancer, unlike chemotherapy, which attacks the tumor itself. There are various types of cancerous tumors, such as melanoma, that use a "shield" to protect themselves from being identified by the immune system. The new medicine paralyzes this type of screening mechanism, so the immune system can recognize the cancer and attack it.
The results of the international research suggest that using the medicine Pembrolizumab, also known as MK-3475, yields impressive survival rates in patients with advanced cancer, with 69 percent surviving one year and 63 percent surviving 18 months.
Without this treatment, patients with metastatic melanoma die from the disease within 4-5 months, after reaching stage four cancer. The research tested 41,818 patients, 1,800 of them in Israel. The research took place over a decade, while the clinical stage took four years.
The new medicine, which belongs to a new generation of biological drugs, yielded extraordinary results to the point that the FDA approved it for "compassionate use" (the use of an investigational drug outside a clinical trial by patients with life-threatening conditions) and it will be given for free to terminally ill patients. It is also be fast tracked for approval, which is expected by October.
"One of my patients who suffered metastatic melanoma in very critical condition entered the trial, and within six weeks his body was completely clean of cancer," said Schachter. He stressed that because of the biological nature of the drug; its side effects are minimal and allows patients optimal quality of life.
Merck, the American company that developed the drug, has a department in Israel called MSD, which operates a research division working in tandem with medical centers in Israel.
"We are on our way to turn melanoma a treatable chronic disease," said Schachter. "We are also seeing positive results in other types of cancer such as the urinary bladder, head neck and lungs". Prof. Alise Reicin, who heads the American team that developed the drug, termed it "definitely a breakthrough in the war against cancer".
Did you NOT read this? Where do you come up with your numbers?
The new medicine, which belongs to a new generation of biological drugs, yielded extraordinary results to the point that the FDA approved it for “compassionate use” (the use of an investigational drug outside a clinical trial by patients with life-threatening conditions) and it will be given for free to terminally ill patients. It is also be fast tracked for approval, which is expected by October.
As for all your Comments on Carter. Shame on you. I am happy he is/ or anybody is cancer free. He has brought world focus to Habitat for Humanity, and as a citizen, has done more to help the poor and underprivileged than any president living today. Certainly more than Obama.
Ah remember when that rabbit , trained by bunnymaster Ben Laudin, attacked Jimmah in tha boat and infected him with that killa virus that ate what was left of Jimmah’s brain and eventually started eatin Jimmah too! So kind of the jews to rescue Jimmah and maybe he can save the Demacrat’s 2016 party.
Are you absolutely sure that it wasn’t Hamas that helped develop that cancer drug? I’ve heard ad nauseum about the many contributions to mankind that the muslims have made.
Don’t forget Carter’s ultimate compassion of freeing Iran from th Shah and introducing the glorious era of radical Islam!
Jimmy for President, Again!
He’s the only man that can beat Trump!
(Republican elite are hunkering down in closed-door meetings as I write this headline).
I agree, perhaps I am referring to his Post-Presidential activities.
http://www.healthline.com/health-news/keytruda-new-class-cancer-drugs-091014
Keytruda Just One of a New Class of Cancer Drugs to Restart the Immune System
“Keytruda will sell for roughly $12,500 per patient per month, making it the 6th most expensive drug on the market, according to the trade publication FiercePharma.”
Merck’s melanoma ‘game-changer’ Keytruda likely to bolster drug pricing debate
http://www.healthline.com/health-news/keytruda-new-class-cancer-drugs-091014#1
September 5, 2014 | By Arlene Weintraub
“Merck said Keytruda (pembrolizumab) would cost $12,500 per patient per month, or $150,000 per year”
My dear friend was a nurse and had melanoma, she tried an experimental treatment, it kept cancer at bay until she went off the treatment (the side effects were altered mental thinking, blindness etc, terrible effects), soon after a brain tumor came back and she died within weeks. It may extend your life to get things in order, but it won’t be quality of life.
I can't speak to whether he is cancer free, but I would LOVE to think that this new immunotherapy is effective. There is some very interesting work going on with it. I have seen some televised news items on the work going on and some remarkable stories associated with it in clinical trials. It is not quackery, but very real progress by recognized names in cancer research.
Jimmy may be lying, maybe not but this line of research is holding out some real hope for cancer victims.
Cancer is a vile, equal opportunity killer that’s gotten all too many of us, regardless of politics. Carter has done some horrible political things, but has never stooped to the pure evil of Teddy Kennedy. I pray for his recovery because,but for good fortune, that’s where each of us may go. The thing to comment on here really ought to be this extraordinary medical advance.
I hope that they included something in the treatment to actually restore brain function...which has been dormant since at least the mid-1970s.
Not to worry! He still hates the Jews for some reason (maybe they are better peanut farmers and politicians than he is?-)
This medical discovery won’t matter to Carter, who has absolutely no class. He’ll continue demonizing Israel. It’s who he is, it’s in his DNA.
Israel Matzav?
The re-poster of anti-Trump crap, expert on absolutely nothing, and whose posts almost always gather ZERO replies?
http://israelmatzav.blogspot.co.il/search/label/Donald%20Trump
And YES, the lockstep demographic that consistently votes for that which destroys BOTH Israel and the US.
Agreed...
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