Carter Cancer-Free After Immunotheraphy

Former President Jimmy Carter said he is cancer-free at a Sunday school class at Maranatha Baptist Church in Georgia. However, Carter said in a statement that he will continue to take Keytruda, an immunotherapy drug that helps his body recognize and fight any stray cancer cells.

The 91-year-old Nobel Peace Laureate and global humanitarian recently had a tumour removed from his liver, only to find four melanoma spots on his brain. “I will continue to receive regular three-week immunotherapy treatments of pembrolizumab”.

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, said parts of body where the cancer has not spread are also scanned in cases of melanoma.

The drug pembrolizumab is given to patients with advanced forms of cancer that can not be treated with other medications.

Immunotherapy has proven effective for melanoma, the type of cancer for which Carter received treatment.

Dr. Tolcher says the world is on the verge of a “golden age” of drug development, where decades of research is about to pay off in treatments and cures which will change the face of medicine. Carter is devoutly religious and continued to teach classes at the church even after news of his original cancer diagnosis had sunk in. “There have been instances of relapse two to three years in while using immunotherapy treatment, but you’d say there is a good reason to be quite optimistic”. “It’s very different from traditional chemotherapy”.

While undergoing treatment, which also included radiation therapy, Carter stayed busy teaching Sunday school and participating in a Habitat for Humanity build, reports Reuters.

“A lot of people prayed for me”, Carter said in the video of the event covered by NBC, “and I appreciate that”.

Based on my reading and my personal experience, I can’t imagine that any oncologist would suggest that cancer of a patient under active treatment is gone or has disappeared. ‘He’s not going to stop doing the treatment, but at this point, there’s no cancer. “When they first published the data, they did not have more than 8 months of follow-up in the patients they were treating. But the final result of how well the treatments are combatting or controlling the cancer, we don’t know yet”. “I can’t think of a better Christmas present”.

For more on brain cancer, visit the U.S. National Cancer Institute.