President Carter has no signs of cancer

Carter had undergone treatment for cancer on the liver and said some time ago that the disease had spread to his brain. He then received four rounds of treatment with Keytruda (pembrolizumab), Merck’s anti-PD1 immunotherapy.

“I can’t say that I was surprised”, said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld.

In August, Carter had a portion of his liver removed.

According to the Carter Center, his most recent brain scan “did not reveal any signs of the original cancer spots nor any new ones”.

Several of Carter’s relatives died of pancreatic cancer, which tends to show up earlier in life. He will continue with the immunotherapy treatment of pembrolizumab to prevent cancer from developing in other parts of his body.

Immunologic drugs differ from traditional treatment in that they are a “targeted” therapy that bolsters the immune system to fight the cancer, as opposed to the conventional drug treatment for cancer, which is chemotherapy. Keytruda works by getting in the way of those proteins, allowing the immune system to access the cancer cells. “He’s in fantastic shape for 91 and I like happy endings and I’m very happy that he is going to be OK and be with us for a while”, Kurland said.

The doctors had found four lesions in his brain. It is also approved for advanced lung cancer. It is also possible that the melanoma could recur in a shorter period of time.

“Now, having said that, and this is important, we never know in a circumstance like this what tomorrow may bring”.

President Carter has remained active during his treatment.

Carter told The Associated Press in November that he experiences few side effects from the drug treatments. “I haven’t been uncomfortable or ill after the treatments were over”.

“I’m feeling better than anybody expected me to, so I’m still maintaining a pretty normal schedule, I’d say”, Carter told NPR last month. Many people are concerned about the cost of new cancer therapies, which now routinely debut at more than $100,000 a year. “And it’s expensive to have large trials”, Demopoulos said. We’re actually seeing about 40 percent of patients who get similar drugs to what he got having responses upfront. “That’s how fast things are changing”.

“It doesn’t mean that there is no cancer in his body; it means that there is no indication that they can find cancer for the present”, said Lichtenfeld.