Recent MRI Shows Jimmy Carter Cancer is Gone

In a marvelous – if not miraculous – turn of events, the 91-year-old former US president announced Sunday that his cancer is gone. The former President’s treatment regimen has also included surgery and radiation.

Jimmy Carter said Sunday that his most recent brain scan showed no signs of cancer, more than three months after he began treatment for four melanoma tumors. Carter says he will continue taking his regular 3-week immunotherapy treatments of the cancer drug pembrolizuma, which has shown promise in the treatment of melanoma.

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, told the wire service that doctors will often scan other parts of the body in melanoma cases, to make sure the disease has not spread. And we’re really seeing a lot of people who are living a long, long time with either minimally detectable or no detectable cancer.

“His greatest risk was that he was going to get disease developed in new locations, but seemingly that hasn’t happened”, Dr. Dale Shepard, a Cleveland oncologist, said. “I am perfectly at ease with whatever comes”, said Mr. Carter during a news conference”. I did reach out to Emory directly but they were not able to comment. “So that part of it has been a relief to me and I think to the doctors”. Still, cancer cells could remain in the body for many years after treatment. So that also puts him into better prognostic group than many others. The lesion on his liver was removed on August 12. By adding the immunotherapy to that, it may have also helped the situation.

Normally, the immune system can recognize things that shouldn’t be there, like a bacteria or virus, Shepard explained. “It is certainly possible he could go on for a significant period of time without any new metastases”. “It’s very different from traditional chemotherapy”. These drugs interfere with that process, so, by interfering with that shutdown process, they allow the immune system to do its job. Keytruda, an engineered immune protein called a monoclonal antibody, disrupts this cloaking effect and lets the immune cells do their job and eat the tumor cell.

But the drugs can help some patients live longer, Turnham said. Approximately 10,000 deaths occur from it annually.

President Jimmy Carter’s announcement that he is “cancer free” is giving cancer patients new hope.

“There can be fever, diarrhea, malaise (and) appetite issues, but they are usually mild”.

We are seeing incredible responses with these drugs, but unfortunately, obviously they don’t work for everybody.

Pembrolizumab, by comparison, does not typically cause side effects.

“The President is fortunate that he is in good physical and mental health for his age”. The drug pembrolizumab is given to patients with advanced forms of cancer that can not be treated with other medications.