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BALTIMORE: John Ryan is just 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.
Retired Nuclear Reactor Specialist Celebrates 74th Anniversary in July, Fighting Cancer Illustrates Promises and Failures of Immunotherapy, a Growing Field in Which the Pharmaceutical Industry Invests mbadively. Ryan was able to attend the graduation of three of his children and will be attending the wedding of one of his daughters this summer – even though doctors were expecting that it would not happen. Was only 18 months to live in June 2013.
"These are exciting things to do for," he said. But he knows a lot of people who have not been so lucky. "In five years, I've lost a lot of good friends."
Immunotherapy is one of two broad categories of cancer drugs, the most well-known being chemotherapy, used for many years. Decades and aims to kill tumors.Toxic that also attacks healthy cells, causing major side effects like weakness, pain, diarrhea, nausea and weight loss.
Ryan went through all this in 2013 and his tumor persisted exhausted by the chemo Ryan was accepted into a final clinical trial using nivolumab (brand name Opdivo) late 2013. The drug was administered intravenously to the hospital, initially all two weeks, then once a month, his tumor quickly disappeared and 104 injections
Recently, a mysterious mbad appeared in his right lung: "They shot me with chemo, it m 39; almost killed, and now I'm in in to suck immunotherapy, and it was good. My quality of life has been excellent, "said Ryan
Relatively Few Patients
Immunotherapy Forms the Body's Natural Defenses – Immune Cells, Also Called T-cells for detect and kill Some experts are cautious, having been disappointed many times by other innovative approaches to cancer control, but many consider immunotherapy as a turning point: more than 30 drugs of all kinds. immunotherapy are under development and 800 clinical trials. are underway, according to Otis Brawley, medical director of the American Cancer Society.
Ryan's oncologist, Julie Brahmer, said that she is beginning to treat about one-third of her lung cancer patients by immunotherapy and not by chemotherapy. many clinical trials are underway, far more than the average of US hospitals.
Doctors are intrigued by the exceptionally long discounts observed in a small number of patients like Ryan. According to William Nelson, director of Johns Hopkins' Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, these patients account for approximately 10-15% of patients. Normal discounts 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 cure some of the most difficult forms of cancer without resorting to the most toxic techniques.
Treatments
A spectacular example concerns prostate cancer. The researchers found that recommendations for regular screening had the opposite effect of what was expected: too many tumors that would never have spread were treated during operations.
With regard to bad cancer, a major study published in early June at the American Society of Clinical Oncology conference showed that for tens of thousands of women, surgery and hormone therapy were enough to ward off cancer. They discovered that chemotherapy was administered unnecessarily, which surprised the cancer community.
Meanwhile, genetic testing is becoming more 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 basing treatment simply on the location of the tumor. "At this point, we have better and better tools to say," Yes, it needs to be treated, it is not, "Nelson said.
Certain cancers, including brain cancer, remain outside these new treatments. But for leukemia, bad cancer, lung cancer, cervix, colon and rectum cancer, as well as skin cancer known as melanoma, immunotherapy and d & # 39; Other personalized treatments are progressing slowly but surely.
For oncologist Julie Brahmer, she hopes that someday, metastatic cancers – those that can spread to distant points of the original site – will be treated as a "chronic disease" rather than like a death sentence. John Ryan has a simpler goal in mind. "My goal is to die of something other than lung cancer," he said.
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