http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Young-Mothers-Life-Saved-by-New-Melanoma-Treatment-120412679.htmlXiomara Goicochea was eight months pregnant when she was diagnosed with malignant melanoma.
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By the time her daughter was four months old, her melanoma was stage 4. Her oncologist, Dr. Jose Lutzky, showed us her scan filled with black dots where the tumors were growing: “skin, soft tissue, the liver, the bones", he recalled, "the lungs were involved. The median survival for a patient like this is six months.”
At the time, Mt. Sinai Comprehensive Cancer Center was the only site in South Florida testing an experimental treatment. The FDA recently approved Yervoy. Delivered in four infusions, three weeks apart, it enables a patient's own immune cells to fight the cancer. Xiomara says she felt “no pain, no side effects. I didn't have any type of reaction.” After two treatments, she started to see her tumors literally shrink before her eyes.
Dr. Lutzky explains that among the study participants “about 30 percent benefitted from the treatment in that they had either a complete response, a partial shrinkage of the tumor, or they had stabilization of disease. That is, the tumor stopped growing.” Less than five percent of the patients responded like Xiomara.
Five years later, there is no trace of melanoma anywhere.
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I'm always skeptical about the cancer cure of the day stories, but this one has been in trials for a long time and the folks are Mt. Sinai have a good bit of data now. Not a great success rate, but even a 30% benefit is better than most treatments.
Melanoma can be common down here in Florida after spending your life out in the sun everyday. I'm sort of resigned to getting it one day after a lifetime of boating.