Friday, June 3, 2016

Promising Drugs Stoke Talk of Cancer 'Cures'


Robert Waag is alive and apparently cancer free more than two years after advanced melanoma reached his lungs, hips and other parts of his body - a feat only recently considered unthinkable for such patients.

Waag, 77, is on the immunotherapy Keytruda, a new type of drug that enlists the body's defenses in the fight. 

The first new immunotherapy drug for cancer was introduced in 2011, so long-term efficacy is unknown. But the approach is showing promise. Before these drugs, the prognosis for most patients with advanced melanoma was a year at best.

In one study of Keytruda, 40 percent of such patients survived at least three years, and 10 percent showed no evidence of cancer. 

Click here for the full article.

Source: NBC News

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