ATLANTA-Former President Jimmy Carter said in a brief statement Sunday that his latest brain scan showed no signs of cancer. He said he will continue receiving regular immunotherapy treatments using the drug pembrolizumab. Carter said he would receive radiation as well as the immunotherapy drug to treat the cancer as part of his treatment at Atlanta’s Emory University Winship Cancer Center.
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“He said he got a scan this week and the cancer was gone”, said Jill Stuckey, a member of Maranatha Baptist Church who hosts the Carters for dinner regularly.
He said in August that his cancer treatment, which has included radiation, would require him to cut back dramatically on his public schedule.
Allegedly there were about 350 persons in attendance to the class that Carter was teaching at Maranatha and a lot of them were visitors to the church.
The treatment is so new that it’s hard to predict “how durable” Carter’s response is going to be, said Louise Perkins, chief science officer for the Melanoma Research Alliance, the largest private funder of melanoma research.
Ms Stuckey said people filling the sanctuary applauded after Mr Carter’s announcement.
Others piggybacked on Jimmy Carter “brain comments”, stating “The cancer isn’t gone, his brain is”, and “We all knew he had brain cancer when he ruined America”.
Carter told reporters in August, “It’s in the hands of God”.
Carter – a father of four, grandfather of 12 and great-grandfather of 10 – served as the 39th president for one term between 1977 and 1981.
The disease is often accompanied by a poor prognosis, but experts said Carter appeared to have benefited from early detection.
Keytruda is an antibody created to disable the protein PD-1 so it can not do its job of keeping the immune system in check; this allows T cells to become more active in recognizing and fighting cancer cells.
In August, Carter revealed that he had been diagnosed with cancer.
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Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 2002 for his commitment to finding peaceful solutions to global conflicts and his work for human rights and the promotion of democracy. Making Carter’s recovery even more astonishing is that only one-third of malignant melanoma patients respond to Keytruda treatment.
