Search Here

The drug used in the treatment of cancer in former President Jimmy Carter is found to have helped increase the life span of some cancer patients. Pfizer drug in combination with Merck & Co's immunotherapy Keytruda was reported to be effective in treating different types of cancers.

The cancer drug that helped Carter fight melanoma is found to have been effective in treating the same condition in small number of patients, reports a recent study. The study also has it that the life span of the patients could be increased up to three years with the help of the drug, according to NBC News.

"It is definitely a huge benefit over what we have seen in the past," said ASCO president Dr. Julie Vose, a specialist in blood cancers at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. "In the past, patients with this type of melanoma - he has metastases to the brain - you don't even see responses to therapy," Vose told NBC News about the former President. "This is something really different than what we have seen in the past."

About 655 patients with advanced melanoma were included in the study by researchers from Caroline Robert of Gustave Roussy and Paris-Sud University in France. The patients had cancers in the vital organs that couldn't be removed or cured by surgery. While 40 percent of the patients lived three years more than their projected survival time, 15 percent of the patients had no trace of tumor after the treatment, referred to as complete remission.

"It's difficult to know at what point you call it a cure. For the patient, though, it means they are cancer-free and for some of those patients, it is likely that their cancer never will come back," told Tim Turnham, executive director of the Melanoma Research to NBC News. "When this study was started the average life expectancy of someone with advanced melanoma was 11 months and now we're seeing that a large percentage of people are living at least three years."

The researchers also studied the effect of Keytruda in combination with Pfizer's utomilumab in small group of patients that had cancer in advanced stages. The patients include those suffering from different cancers like thyroid cancer, kidney cancer, two different forms of lung cancers, pancreatic cancer and colorectal cancer, reported Reuters.