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PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – The symptoms of Claud Lape's lung cancer occurred because it had spread.
"I had pain in my hip and lower back," he said. three sisters died of lung cancer. Claud was worried about getting the same treatments, especially surgery.
"It was inoperable, they could not work on it, I really did not want to be operated on," says Claud.
But he understood that his prognosis was bleak.
"I have two young children, and my wife.He was thinking of death, he said.
His doctor has presented an alternative – Claud could participate in a study to determine Immunotherapy would be helpful for the most common type of lung cancer: non-small cell lung cancer.He said that if I were in your situation, that's exactly what I would do, Claud said about his conversation with his doctor. "I thought, it could not hurt. I hoped for the best, waiting for the worst. "
Cancer can extinguish the immune system." Immunotherapy does not kill cells based on their cell division rate, or one of the characteristics we traditionally view with chemotherapy " Allegheny General Hospital Cancer Specialist Dr. Gene Finley says, "These drugs invigorate the immune response to help fight cancer."
Allegheny Health Network participated in a study funded by drug manufacturers. compared the standard combination of chemotherapy, plus a hungry tumor drug called Avastin against chemotherapy, Avastin, and immunotherapy for people with non-small cell lung cancer.
The group receiving all three drugs achieved good results.] "Improves response rate, and improves progression time, and it seems like it improves overall survival," says Dr. Finley
If studies continue to go well, this could eventually become an approved treatment
. "We do not have enough data to say that someone has been cured," says Dr. Finley. "We have had some notable cases where the disease has been in remission for some time."
Claud completed chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Now, every three weeks, he gets immunotherapy through an IV line that stays in place.
"As long as the treatments continue to work, I'll continue to do them, I'm not talking about what's ahead, because I do not know if we know what's going to happen," says Claud. "I knew that thanks to my past experiences with my family, I did not think that, three years later, almost three years later, I would still be there.For the up and coming generations, I hope that I will be there. they can fix it, it would be an incredible thing. "
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