Monoclonal antibody treatment also shows several peculiarities. Unlike standard chemotherapy, side effects are a good sign, because they correlate with a strong antitumor response. And progressive disease may not always be a sign of treatment failure: Instead of stalling or shrinking, lesions may actually grow or increase in number during the course of ultimately successful treatment with ipilimumab. This unpredictability has led immunotherapy researchers to develop and adopt a system of immune-related response criteria, an alternative to the WHO's partial/complete response criteria for response to anticancer treatments.
I wrote about the first part of this a couple posts back. The last couple sentences are news to me. It's actually not relevant to my case, since I have been cancer free for quite a while now and don't have any lesions, but it's still interesting.
In related news, it's now been 10 months since I was first diagnosed.
Edit: turns out I first linked to that article on November 2.
Max,
ReplyDeleteI hope you'll keep posting. I want to stay in touch! I've also added you to my prayers!
This has been such a frightening experience. Thanks so much for helping me see that a person can be more than their "disease." It's been hard to keep that perspective since my husband was diagnosed. Cancer seems to have taken over our lives and changed everything.
I appreciate your insights and the eloquent way you express them!
Lou