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President Carter’s Status

Posted in Imaging-based Cancer Patient Management, Immuno-Oncology & Genomics, Medical Imaging Technology, Nuclear Medicine, Patient Experience, Patient Outlook, Personal Health Applications: Tech Innovations serves HealhCare, Personalized and Precision Medicine & Genomic Research, Pharmaceutical Analytics, Reputation of Interventionist, Support Staff, Surgical Procedure, tagged LPD-1, Melanoma, post-surgical metastasis and treatment, recovery consideration on March 7, 2016| Leave a Comment »

President Carter’s Status

Author: Larry H. Bernstein, MD, FCAP

Most Experts Not Surprised by Carter’s Status

But early response does not mean ‘cure’

http://www.medpagetoday.com/HematologyOncology/SkinCancer/55076

http://clf1.medpagetoday.com/media/images/55xxx/55076.jpg

by Charles Bankhead
Staff Writer, MedPage Today

Former President Jimmy Carter’s announcement that he is free of metastatic melanoma surprised many people but, not most melanoma specialists contacted by MedPage Today.

With the evolution of modern radiation therapy techniques and targeted drugs, more patients with metastatic melanoma achieve complete and partial remissions, including remission of small brain metastases like the ones identified during the evaluation and initial treatment of Carter. However, the experts — none of whom have direct knowledge of Carter’s treatment or medical records — cautioned that early remission offers no assurance that the former president is out of the woods.

“If I had a patient of my own with four small brain mets undergoing [stereotactic radiation therapy], I would tell them that I fully expected the radiation to take care of those four lesions,” said Vernon K. Sondak, MD, of Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. “The fact that President Carter reports that it has done just that is not a surprise to me at all.

“I would also tell my patient that the focused radiation only treats the known cancer in the brain, and that if other small areas of cancer are present, they will likely eventually grow large enough to need radiation or other treatment as well, and that periodic brain scans will be required to monitor for this possibility.”

Carter also is being treated with the immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda), which is known to stimulate immune cells that then migrate to tumor sites to eradicate the lesions, noted Anna Pavlick, DO, of NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City.

“Melanoma is no longer a death sentence, and we are really changing what happens to patients,” said Pavlick. “It really is amazing.”

Carter’s melanoma story began to emerge in early August when he had surgery to remove what was described as “a small mass” from his liver. Following the surgery, Carter announced that his doctors had discovered four small melanoma lesions in his brain, confirming a suspicion the specialists had shared with him at the time of the surgery.

Carter subsequently underwent focused radiation therapy to eradicate the brain lesions and initiated a 12-week course of treatment with pembrolizumab. The radiation therapy-targeted therapy combination was a logical option for Carter, given observations that the PD-L1 inhibitor has synergy with radiation, noted Stergios Moschos, MD, of the University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at Chapel Hill.

“I have seen this in other patients with metastatic melanoma,” said Gary K. Schwartz, MD, of Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. “It is remarkable but absolutely possible within the realm of immunotherapy today.”

Although Carter’s announcement is undeniably good news, the optimism should be tempered by a long-term perspective, suggested Nagla Abdel Karim, MD, PhD, of the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

“We do have similar stories; however, we would be careful to call it a ‘complete remission’ and ‘disease control’ and not a ‘cure,’ so far,” said Karim. “We would resume therapy and follow-up any autoimmune side effects. Most important is the quality of life, which he seems to enjoy, and we are very happy with that.”

Darrell S. Rigel, MD, also of NYU Langone Medical Center, represented the lone dissenter among specialists who responded to MedPage Today‘s request for comments.

“I’m happy for him, but it’s very unusual, especially in older men, who usually have a worse prognosis,” said Rigel. “He is on a new drug that may have a little more promise, but there is no definitive cure at this point.”