(Everydayhealth.com) Sanjay Gupta, MD, Everyday Health: I’ve reported a number of times for Everyday Health now on the newest front in the battle against cancer called immunotherapy. This is a very exciting new tool in fighting this disease. We are still just learning how to use it, but it is already showing amazing results, sometimes curing people who were very close to death.
Former President Jimmy Carter is one person who had a dramatic turnaround after trying an experimental immunotherapy drug. Now I want to introduce you to another.
Terry Smythe just missed making the Olympic rowing team in 1980 and ’84. She turned her passion into a college coaching position and a successful coast-to-coast fitness business.
Terry Smythe: You know the beauty about rowing, when you get the opportunity to row on the water — it is literally a collision of spirituality. You know, that sense of moving a boat through calm waters, the sound of the oars.
I found out I had cancer November 5, 2013.
Dr. Gupta: The diagnosis was a rare form of melanoma called mucosal melanoma. Most melanomas begin in the skin, often the result of sun damage. But this kind begins in the mucus membranes
Svetomir Markovic, MD, PhD, Mayo Clinic oncologist: The mucosal melanomas tend to be, by and large, more aggressive disorders, more resistant to even conventional treatments.
Terry Smythe: So when I went back for my three-month checkup there was, you know, I had a lot of tumors in my liver, a couple in my lymph nodes and that, again, progressed into my abdomen. It was scary, and I was like: okay, now what?
Dr. Markovic: She’s basically been through the gamut of accepted treatments. She’s had surgery, she’s had drug therapy. She had failed treatments, and she was essentially left with experimental options.
Dr. Gupta: At the Mayo Clinic, she was treated with a combination of two experimental immunotherapy drugs.
It turns out cancer cells are smart. They have found ways to hide from the body’s immune system. These drugs work by unmasking the tumors, so to speak, so the immune cells can find and kill them.
But these drugs don’t work for everyone. In fact, sometimes they work only on a small percentage of patients who have a tumor with a particular genetic signature. A PET scan would reveal whether Terry’s treatment was working.
Dr. Markovic: It’s all good! It’s all good! It’s all good! You are doing fantastic! There is no question. Before … after.
This is why I signed up to do what I do. This is the front line in the war on cancer, and we need victories like these.
Terry Smythe: I’m not done living. I’m a new grandma. She’s just a year old. I want to see her go to kindergarten. I’d love to see her go to college.
Dr. Gupta: With Everyday Health, I’m Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Be wel
Fuente: www.everydayhealth.com
