Jimmy Carter Reveals His Brain Cancer Is Gone

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.

Subsequent testing showed that it was a form of melanoma, which had spread to four spots in his brain. Carter, 90, said he will cut back dramatically on his schedule to receive treatment every three weeks after doctors detected four spots of melanoma on his brain following recent liver cancer surgery.

“I’ve reacted well to the treatments”, he said last month. “For today, the news can not be better”, Lichtenfeld said. While the new immuno-therapeutic drugs like pembrolizumab are helping patients in ways never seen before, Dr. Vernon Sondak said the advances in radiation therapy also have made tremendous differences in outcomes for patients. “I am perfectly at ease with whatever comes”, said Mr. Carter during a news conference”. These drugs interfere with that process, so, by interfering with that shutdown process, they allow the immune system to do its job.

Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives to speak during an event honoring former US Vice President Walter Mondale hosted by the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota in Washington October 20, 2015.

On Sunday, Carter, 91, told a church group in Georgia that his physicians could not find any cancer in his scans. There are certain organs or glands in the immune system that can, in a sense, “turn on” the body and cause inflammation, but most patients don’t have that problem and frankly it sounds like the President has done extremely well on this drug. Doctors saw no cancer in his brain when he went into the hospital for an MRI earlier that week.

On average, the immunotherapy treatment extends a recipient’s life expectancy by a year and a half.

Doctors will continue to scan Carter’s brain and the rest of his body to ensure the disease hasn’t spread, Johnson said.

When Keytruda was approved in September 2014, it marked the beginning of the immuno-oncologic age.

Although Carter’s immune system, unlocked by Keytruda, is likely the main reason he is cancer free, he undoubtedly benefited from the high-precision, high-intensity radiation he received to his brain, too.