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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 his life after a diagnosis of lung cancer
The retired nuclear reactor specialist will celebrate his 74th birthday in July and his fight against Cancer exemplifies the promises and failures of immunotherapy, a booming field in which the pharmaceutical industry invests heavily.
Ryan was able to attend the graduation of three of his children and will attend the wedding of one of his daughters this summer – even though the doctors were expecting that he had only 18 months to live in June 2013.
"It's exciting," he says.
But he knows a lot of people who have not been so lucky.
"In five years, I lost a lot of my dear 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. [19659002Ryanatraversetoutcain2013andpatientdrum
Exhausted by chemo and ravaged by pain, Ryan was accepted into a final clinical trial using nivolumab (brand name Opdivo) in late 2013.
Sample analysis tubes are observed in a laboratory of the Institute of Cancer in Sutton. Reuters
The drug was delivered intravenously to the hospital, first every two weeks, then once a month.
His tumor quickly disappeared, and 104 injections later, the main side effect was itching. a mysterious mass appeared in his right lung.
"They shot me with chemo, it almost killed me, and now I've started taking immunotherapy, and it's been 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 otherwise may 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 immunotherapy drugs are under development and 800 clinical trials are underway.
Julie Brahmer, Ryan's oncologist, said 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 most difficult forms of cancer without resorting to [19659003] Personalized Treatments
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
With regard to breast cancer, a major study published early June at the conference of the American Society of Clinical Oncology has shown that r tens of thousands of women, surgery and hormone therapy have been enough to ward off 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, he needs to be healed. Some cancers, including brain cancer, remain on the margins of these new treatments
but for leukemia, breast 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 the role of oncologist Julie Brahmer, she hopes that someday, metastatic cancers – those that can spread to the original site – 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.
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