I’m now 5.5 years post-treatment with immunotherapy for Stage IV melanoma and have had no evidence of disease for over four years. When immunotherapy works, it can be impressive.
For me, my treatment (adoptive cell therapy using tumor infiltrating lymphocytes) used my own white blood cells (130 billion in lab-selected and expanded form) to overwhelm the mutated cancer cells.
It was a one-time treatment (over 3-4 weeks in the hospital) with no further meds or other treatments required.
Immunotherapy has become an important tool in the future of fighting cancer, for sure.
Yes, for the two days of high dose IL-2 every 8 hours, it was pretty bad. My experience was limited to nausea, fever, sweating, and bed-shaking rigors. I've heard that some patients experience hallucinations.
Note: IL-2 was administered after I received my lab-grown white blood cells. It acts as signal to one's immune system to activate. It was used to jumpstart my immune system after it had been replaced.
I wonder how a combination of aggressive immunotherapy and "sickness" counteracting effects of cannabis (for the nausea, fever, sweating) would do in making the immunothrerapy more effective and tolerable.
Since the treatment was performed on site at the National Institutes of Health using Federal research dollars, this wouldn't have been an option. So, I have no idea.
I hope all patients that would benefit from this treatment will have access to it, to save their lives and to validate and improve the therapy for all those to come
Yes, harnessing the patient's immune system to fight their cancer is a very promising technology and is saving the lives of many patients, even more as the processes and meds get further refined.
For me, my treatment (adoptive cell therapy using tumor infiltrating lymphocytes) used my own white blood cells (130 billion in lab-selected and expanded form) to overwhelm the mutated cancer cells.
It was a one-time treatment (over 3-4 weeks in the hospital) with no further meds or other treatments required.
Immunotherapy has become an important tool in the future of fighting cancer, for sure.