The drug doesn’t have the “terrible side effects” that treatments a few decades had.
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In a wide-ranging interview last month about his life with Reuters Editor-at-Large Sir Harold Evans, Carter reflected on his childhood in a home without running water or electricity and his concerns about ongoing racial prejudice in the United States.
Carter’s grandson Jason Carter said he hopes the former president spends as much time as possible with his wife, Rosalynn – and gets to go fishing. “So this is a propitious time I think for us to finally carry out our long-delayed plans”.
Former President Jimmy Carter is leaving open the possibility of taking a previously planned trip to Nepal despite undergoing radiation treatment for cancer on his brain.
“Jimmy Carter is well-known for his family history of pancreatic cancer”. On Wednesday, he began an intravenous treatment, with radiation therapy set to start on Thursday afternoon, he said.
Carter appeared at the news conference in a blazer, tie and jeans, surrounded by family members including his wife, Rosalynn. Carter is known for having an abiding Christian faith.
The native of tiny Plains, Georgia, rebuilt his career as a humanitarian guiding the center focused on global issues, including health care and democracy. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. He also said that the rest of his body will be scanned repeatedly for months to come and that more cancers may show up elsewhere. Doctors removed about 1/10 of his liver during the surgery, he said.
A test for the P16 mutation is available, Devoe said, but he didn’t know if Carter had taken it. As a type of cancer with a tendency to spread, Devoe said melanoma is one of three forms of cancer likely to metastasize to the brain.
But that same afternoon, the MRI showed it was on his brain.
He added that no cancer has been found on his pancreas or any other part of his body so far, and doctors are monitoring him closely.
He said Thursday that his diagnosis will prompt him to “fairly dramatically” curtail his activities with the Carter Center, but he said he’ll at least continue fundraising for the organization. “There are gene linkages for pancreatic cancer and melanoma”, Devoe said.
So far, the pain was “very slight”, Carter was quoted as saying by Xinhua. But I was surprisingly at ease. “I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t go into an attitude of despair or anger or anything like that”. But there were no tears, just talk of “a new kind of adventure” as he fights cancer with the help of a new drug.
In a press conference Thursday morning, he revealed doctors had found “four spots of melanoma on my brain – small spots”. He is scheduled for four radiation treatments at three-week intervals, along with another treatment that will be given intravenously.
He announced at that time that his prognosis was excellent, though he was rearranging his schedule to receive treatment at Emory Healthcare in Atlanta. Doctors performed a complete physical examination and found the tumor on his liver.
As yet, he has not been too uncomfortable, Carter told reporters. Staffers also are gathered in an upstairs balcony. The event will be closed to the public.
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The liver tumour, which he said was 2.5 centimetres wide, was removed in an Aug. 3 surgery and on August 12, Carter announced that he had cancer.
