'He has a lot to live for': Jimmy Carter's melanoma treatment - CNN.com

Jimmy Carter's melanoma treatment - CNN.com: Atlanta (CNN)Hearing a diagnosis of advanced melanoma, former President Jimmy Carter said he thought he had a few weeks to live, but was "surprisingly at ease" and that he trusted in the treatment prescribed by his doctors at Emory University.

The 90-year-old had a significant book tour planned this year to promote his latest memoir, "A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety," but decided to rearrange his schedule to fit in the treatment. At no point did he consider going without treatment, he told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. The former president said he would trust the advice of his doctors.

Thursday afternoon, Carter was to undergo radiation treatment.

On Wednesday, the hospital fitted him with a mask that will hold his head perfectly still to make sure the radiation goes into the right places in his brain. "Focused radiation as compared to general radiation has shown some success," said Dr. Manmeet Ahluwalia. "That they are really small makes it more likely that these lesions can be controlled."

Doctors also will give Carter the drug Pembrolizumab -- known by its U.S. brand name Keytruda -- intravenously. The Food and Drug Administration approved the drug in September 2014 to treat melanoma that cannot be removed by surgery, or a cancer that has metastasized. He has four treatments scheduled at three-week intervals.

Essentially, the drug works by revving up a patient's own immune system to kill the cancer, according to Ahluwalia.

This aggressive mix of treatments, treatments Carter's oncologist characterized as "the vanguard of cancer treatment," may have a positive impact, but positive impact does have its limitations. Typically with Stage IV melanoma there are "not very good outcomes," Ahluwalia said. Often people will be given a ballpark of six to 12 months to live if they have brain metastases. "However, what we are finding out (is) a select group of patients can derive more durable benefit from Pembrolizumab" and radiation. "But the emphasis is on the word 'select' and even that group typically lives only two to three years longer, but it is still a minority of patients and we also need to factor in the age, which can be important."

'He has a lot to live for'

What is working in Carter's favor, Ahluwalia said, is the active life that Carter leads. Sometimes, he said, that is nearly as big a factor in outcome as age. People who have the sort of positive attitude Carter displayed at the press conference "generally do better."

What impact this treatment will have on his life going forward is up for debate. Carter said he had hoped to join a Habitat for Humanity build scheduled later this year to replace homes lost in the earthquakes in Nepal, but said he understands that he will generally have to cut back on his busy schedule.

In an interview with CNN's Gupta, Carter's doctor Dr. Walter Curren said that the new therapies made available in the past five years have "far less side effects than standard chemotherapy." He added, "You heard President Carter. He wants to be proactive, he has a lot to live for, and what we offered him is a regimen a man in good health his age can handle."

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The drug comes with a steep price:

Merck said the cost to payers for many patients will be $12,500 per patient monthly, or $150,000 for a year's worth of treatment.

Some analysts believe total annual sales of cancer immunotherapies could reach about $32 billion by 2025, if more drugs make it to market to treat a range of cancers. Leerink Swann estimates Merck's new drug alone could generate annual sales of more than $6 billion by then.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/fda-approves-mercks-cancer-drug-1409856320

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Can't  help but wonder who's paying for Carter's treatment.

“He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” 
John 12:25

 I've stopped paying the premium on my health insurance; an avid Obama supporter in violation of Obamacare.
LOL