Immunotherapy has been featured a lot on this blog because of the potential to dramatically improve the survival rates of cancer patients, including those struck by melanoma. Obviously, I’m not the only one excited about the progress made in this field. This year’s Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded to two immunology researchers – Dr. James Allison of the MD… Read more »
So in the last post, I talked about checkpoint blockade immunotherapy and the results it had on prolonging survival rates for those with brain metastases. In the post, I referenced a protein called PD-1, which is found on T cells and acts as a brake on the immune response. Using immune checkpoint inhibitor drugs releases that brake and allows the… Read more »
As I have mentioned a few times in this blog, melanoma has a disconcerting tendency to spread to the lungs, liver, and brain when it enters into the metastasizing stages. And brain tumors like that are pretty darn hard to treat. Most of the current treatments don’t really provide much benefit to patients. And once melanoma metastasizes, only about half… Read more »