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John Ryan is only one of the miracles to emerge from the Johns Hopkins Cancer Unit in Baltimore. An immunotherapy treatment – very effective in a minority of patients – saved her life after a diagnosis of lung cancer.
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He will attend graduation ceremonies for three of his children and will attend the wedding of one of his daughters this summer, even though doctors are waiting for it to happen. was only 18 months to live in June 2013.
"These are exciting things," he said.
But he knows a lot of people who have not been so fortunate.
"In five years, I have lost a lot of good friends."
Immunotherapy is one of two major categories of cancer drugs. The best known is chemotherapy, used for decades and which aims to kill tumors but is so toxic that it also attacks healthy cells, causing major side effects such as weakness, pain, diarrhea, nausea and the hairs. [19659004Ryanatraversetoutcain2013andpatientpattern
Exhausted by chemo and ravaged by pain, Ryan was accepted into a final clinical trial using nivolumab (brand name Opdivo) in late 2013.
the drug was administered intravenously to the patient. 39, hospital, first every two weeks, then once a month.
His tumor quickly disappeared, and 104 injections later, the main side effect was itching
. his right lung.
"They shot me with chemo, it almost killed me, and now I started taking immunotherapy, and it was good, my quality life was excellent, "Ryan said. Relatively few patients
Immunotherapy forms the body's natural defenses – immune cells, also called T cells – to detect and kill cancer cells, which might otherwise be found Adapt and hide.
having been repeatedly disappointed by other innovative approaches to the fight against cancer.
But many consider immunotherapy as a turning point. According to Otis Brawley, medical director of the American Cancer Society, more than 30 immunotherapeutic drugs are under development and 800 clinical trials are underway.
Julie Brahmer, Ryan's oncologist, said that she was now starting about one-third of her lung cancer patients. on immunotherapy in the first place, not on chemo
It is helpful that many clinical trials are underway at the Baltimore facility, far more than the average US hospitals.
Doctors are intrigued by the exceptionally long remissions observed in a small number of patients. Ryan. These success stories make up about 10 to 15 percent of patients, said William Nelson, director of Johns Hopkins' Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Normal remissions usually last one and a half to two years
Chemotherapy and radiotherapy are still the most dominant tools.
But in recent years, a series of clinical trials have shaken the world of cancer, showing that it was possible to better treat and even treat some of the most difficult forms of cancer without resorting to the most toxic techniques [19659004] Personalized Treatments
A spectacular example concerns prostate cancer.
Researchers found that regular screening recommendations had the opposite effect of what was expected: too many tumors that would never have spread were treated in operations.
With respect to bad cancer, a major study published early June at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Conference showed that for tens of thousands of women, surgery and hormone therapy were sufficient to ward off cancer. They discovered that chemotherapy was unnecessarily used, which surprised the cancer community.
Meanwhile, genetic testing is becoming increasingly common for tumors, allowing more accurate and faster treatments for patients.
Johns Hopkins has a genomics lab specifically designed to help physicians customize patient treatments, rather than simply basing treatment on the location of the tumor.
"At this point, we have better tools to say," Some cancers, including brain cancer, remain on the sidelines of these new treatments. "
But for leukemia, bads, lungs, the cervix, the colon and the rectum. The cancer, as well as skin cancer known as melanoma, immunotherapy and other personalized treatments, is progressing slowly but surely, says Nelson. On the part of oncologist Julie Brahmer, she hopes that someday, metastatic cancers – those that can spread to points far from the place of origin – will be treated as a "chronic disease" rather than a death sentence.
John Ryan has a simpler goal in mind
"My goal is to die of something other than lung cancer," he said.
Learn more:
The lethal treatment of prostate cancer can benefit from combined immunotherapy
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