A cancer drug which is the centerpiece of San Antonio’s START Center’s drug development efforts is given the credit for eliminating all signs of cancer in 91 year old former President Jimmy Carter, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
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He said he would continue to receive regular doses of pembrolizumab, a new treatment that is part of a promising class of drugs that harness the body’s immune system to fight cancer.
Carter was receiving treatment for melanoma that spread from his liver to his brain.
“It’s as good of an outcome as someone with advanced melanoma can hope for”, said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society. That does not mean, however, that he has been cured of the cancer, and he will continue to undergo medical treatment.
Philip Kurland who owns the Plains Trading Post, a political memorabilia dealership says he knew Carter would beat this because the family is full of fighters.
On average, the immunotherapy treatment extends a recipient’s life expectancy by a year and a half. And so very likely his immune system got turned on, attacked those cancer cells, eradicated what was there, and hopefully is continuing to eradicate anything we can’t see, and it now recognizes the cancer as something that it needs to get rid of. But it’s also possible that this drug may have awakened his immune system and destroyed other cancer cells in his body.
Jimmy Carter credits the new cancer drug Keytruda for shrinking his brain tumors completely. Carter’s grandson James Carter confirmed the good news as well.
He says there is still much more to learn about how these drugs work and how much benefit they can offer.
But the drugs can help some patients live longer, Turnham said.
Immunotherapy has proven effective for melanoma, the type of cancer for which Carter received treatment.
His successful treatment benefited from improvements in radiation therapy and immunotherapy, said Dr. Alexis Demopoulos, director of neuro-oncology at North Shore-LIJ’s Brain Tumor Center in Lake Success, N.Y.
Carter served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981. It was among the first immunotherapy cancer medications to be approved by the FDA previous year.
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He said Carter’s news underlies the importance of the need for continued basic scientific research and clinical trials.
