Carter says to undergo radiation for cancerous spots on brain

Each of the spots is very small, “about two millimeters”, Carter said.

What’s frustrating is that sometimes doctors never end up pinpointing the mark that led to the cancer’s spread, the experts say. But immune-system-boosting drugs approved in recent years offer much more hope to patients with melanoma that has spread to other parts of the body.

He said it’s still not clear exactly where the cancer originated, although with melanoma, he’s told that 98 percent of the time it develops first in the skin. Carter said he wasn’t in a lot of discomfort but had some shoulder pain. In addition to his brain, the former President’s cancer also spread to his liver. I’ve had thousands of friends. “I am ready for anything and looking forward to a new adventure”, he added.

He and his wife have thought for many years about cutting back their work at the Carter Center, which he established in 1982 to promote health care and democracy. “Now I feel it’s in the hands of God, and I’ll be prepared for anything that comes”. At the news conference in Atlanta where he sat alone before a bank of reporters and cameras, Carter said he would begin a course of radiation therapy on Thursday afternoon.

Carter also noted that his strength lies in his deep religious belief, and he pledged to continue teaching Sunday school at his church “as long as I’m physically able”.

Still, his grandfather’s responses to reporters often expanded into reflections on his life, faith and family.

As for the work of the Carter Center, he said it would be eradication of an ancient parasitic infection called Guinea worm disease, now confined to a handful of countries of Africa. This time, it’s his candidacy for the position of cancer survivor. His father and three siblings all died of pancreatic malignancies.

Carter was sharp when answering detailed questions from the media, saying that one of his biggest regrets was not sending more helicopters to rescue the hostages in Iran.

And even though he’s 90, Carter is strong, Patel pointed out. Carter said he went home that night thinking he had only a few weeks to live, but found himself feeling “surprisingly at ease”.

He held a news conference on Thursday at his beloved Carter Center in Atlanta, and spoke to the media about his illness more candidly that any president or former president has ever done – except, perhaps, for Lyndon B. Johnson, who, in 1965, gave an unexpected public display of his surgical scar from gallbladder surgery. While traveling to remote villages in Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, South Sudan and elsewhere, Carter has seen the suffering these tropical diseases cause men, women and children of all ages.

“The advances in the last five years have been astounding”, said Anna Pavlick, professor and co-director of the melanoma program at New York University’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, who is not treating Carter but is aware of what treatments he’s getting.

“This is a propitious time for us to follow through on our long-delayed plans”, he said.