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BALTIMORE, USA (AFP) – John Ryan is only one of the miracles that emerged 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 Military Reactor Specialist to Celebrate 74th Anniversary in July and Fight Cancer Reveals the Promises and Failures of Immunotherapy, a Growing Field in which the Pharmaceutical Industry Invests mbadively.
He will be taking part in the wedding of three of his children and will attend the wedding of one of his daughters this summer – even though the doctors were waiting for it to be only 18 months to live in June 2013.
"These are exciting things," he says,
But he knows many people who have not been so lucky.
"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 aimed at killing tumors, but which is so toxic that it also attacks healthy cells, causing major side effects such as weakness, pain, diarrhea, nausea and hair. [19659008Ryanatraversetoutcain2013etsatumeursoristed
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. Immunotherapy forms the body's natural defenses – immune cells, also called T cells – to detect and kill cancer cells, which otherwise may adapt and hide.
Some experts are cautious, having been repeatedly disappointed by other approaches to cancer
But many consider immunotherapy as a turning point. According to Otis Brawley, medical director of the American Cancer Society, more than 30 immunotherapy 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. first on immunotherapy, not on chemotherapy
The current clinical trials in Baltimore are far more numerous than those in the average American hospital.
Doctors are intrigued by the exceptionally long discounts 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 generally last between one and a half years and two years
. radiation is still the most dominant tool.
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 more difficult forms of cancer without resorting to
] A spectacular example concerns prostate cancer
The researchers found that the recommendations of a regular screening had the opposite effect of what was expected: too many tumors that would never have spread were processed during operations. 19659002] Regarding 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 rapy was enough to keep away the cancer. They discovered that chemotherapy was unnecessarily used, which surprised the cancer community.
Meanwhile, genetic testing is becoming more common for tumors, allowing more accurate and faster treatments for patients
. laboratory specifically designed to help doctors customize patient treatments, rather than simply base the treatment on the location of the tumor.
"At this point, we have better tools to say: yes, it needs to be neat. Some cancers, including brain cancer, remain on the margins of these new treatments
but for leukemia, bad cancer, lung cancer, cervix, colon and rectum, as well as that serious skin. The cancer known as melanoma, immunotherapy and other personalized treatments is progressing "slowly but surely," says Nelson.
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 as 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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