Jimmy Carter’s grandson says tests show cancer is gone

Former United States President, Jimmy Carter is having a great start to the week and made an announcement on Sunday that invites the world to share in his good news.

The former Democratic president won plaudits when he discussed his illness publicly in August, sounding serene and in high spirits, smiling often and joking with reporters in a thick Georgia drawl.

“Victory!” tweeted grandson James Carter IV, with a link to the Journal-Constitution’s coverage.

During a post-lunch interview, Carter said he’d lost five pounds since starting treatment, but otherwise experienced few side effects.

In August, Carter’s doctor Walter Curran Jr. said at a press conference that apart from radiation treatment, Carter also received injection of a drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration in February.

Carter is now the second-oldest living former president, behind President George H.W. Bush.

“He said he got a scan this week and the cancer was gone”, the paper quoted Jill Stuckey as saying in a phone call from the Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, where Carter grew up and still lives.

Stuckey said people filling the sanctuary applauded after Carter’s announcement.

An NBC crew was at the Plains church this morning and it caught the moment when Carter updated the crowd on his health – and the gasps and cheers that followed.

Immunotherapy refers to treatment that uses the body’s own immune system to fight cancer, and pembrolizumab is a human antibody used in cancer immunotherapy. “I can’t think of a better Christmas present”.

Carter – a father of four, grandfather of 12 and great-grandfather of 10 – served as the 39th president for one term between 1977 and 1981.

His doctors will continue to scan Carter’s body for any new cancer cell, a procedure typically repeated every three months for the first year or two after a patient’s test results show no cancer, Johnson said.