New Therapy Appears Effective Against Melanoma
A new immunotherapy technique significantly reduced the size of cancer in patients with advanced melanoma who didn't respond to previous treatments, says a U.S. National Cancer Institute study.
The immunotherapy included a combination of chemotherapy and reintroduction of autologous activated lymphocytes, which are white blood cells that have been removed from the patient, re-educated to attack the tumor, and then put back into the patient.
This therapy shows promise as a way to use a patients' own immune system to fight tumors. The study included 35 people with melanoma that had spread throughout the body. Of the 35 patients, 18 (51 percent) experienced improvement in the amount of cancer at various locations in the body -- lung, liver, lymph nodes, brain and skin.
Of the 18 patients who showed improvement, 15 had a partial response that lasted from two months to more than two years.
The findings appear in the April issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
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