Revolutionary Cellular Therapy for Melanoma
DALLAS, Texas (Ivanhoe Newswire) --- As we head into summer — a reminder to put on sunscreen before you head out the door. Latest stats from the American Cancer Society report that a hundred thousand people will be diagnosed with melanomas this year. More than eight thousand will die from them. Now a revolutionary therapy is giving new hope to patients battling this deadly disease.
Steve Balzer spent day after day, year after year, outside working as an electric company lineman. He says, “Next thing I know this lump’s popping up, it’s maybe as big as your thumb.”
Then he was diagnosed with stage four melanoma. For patients like Steve, surgery is the main option.
Doctor Kelly says, “Skin cancer has never responded to the older chemotherapies. In the last ten years, we’ve seen dramatic advances with immunotherapies, but unfortunately patients do progress after a period of time.”
Now oncologist Ronan Kelly is one of the first to use the newly FDA approved TIL cellular therapy for patients with metastatic melanoma.
Doctor Kelly explains, “It is a second-generation immunotherapy. It’s utilizing their own immune cells, which have proven themselves to be stronger than their other immune cells.”
TIL cells are in immune cells that look for and attack cancer cells. This new therapy helps make a patient’s TIL cells stronger, so they can beat cancer.
“What we do is, we take them from the tumor, we grow them in the laboratory, and we give them back as an infusion of their own strong immune cells to overwhelm the tumor.” says Doctor Kelly.
Doctor Kelly believes it may soon be the first treatment to treat other solid tumors that haven’t responded to traditional treatments like surgery, radiation and chemo.
To cut your risk of getting melanoma, be sure to use sunscreen when you head outdoors and re-apply it frequently. The CDC recommends an SPF of 15 or higher. Also try to stay out of the sun from 9am to 3pm when UV rays tend to be strongest. And if you have a lot of moles, or moles that have abnormal shapes or colors — that can put you at risk for melanoma. Also, if you have lighter skin color or have red or blond hair or blue or green eyes.
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