Jul 25, 2007 5:11 pm US/Eastern
Health Watch: Melanoma Cells Face New Threat
New Antibody Drug Effective In Attacking Skin Cancer
BY DR. MAX GOMEZ
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Jim Creaby blamed only the sun for his eight-year battle with malignant melanoma.
CBS
Sitting on the examination room table, Jim Creaby allowed his doctor to inspect the nasty-looking scar on his chest. That scar is one of many that Creaby has developed since discovering he had malignant melanoma.
Since his first diagnosis in 1999, he has had numerous operations and multiple recurrences. Creaby said that he had only the sun to blame.
"Unfortunately, when I am exposed to the sun," Creaby said, "I burn, peel and turn white."
Although Creaby tried many forms of treatment, including radiation, experimental vaccines and chemotherapy, all failed to control his melanoma.
Recently, however, Creaby qualified for an experimental drug called "MDX-010." The monoclonal antibody attaches to white blood cells, essentially releasing the brakes on the immune system and allowing it to recognize and destroy cancer cells.
"The immune system can be highly selective for foreign or altered things," explained Dr. Jim Allison from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. "It attacks cancer cells, for example, while doing minimal damage to normal tissues."
Dr. Allison helped develop the antibody drug.
"There have been ratifying percentages of both partial responses and even complete responses," Allison said. "There is a very durable disappearance of tumors running from 3-5 years."
MDX-010 has shown remarkable effectiveness against melanoma that has spread to other organs.
Dr. Jedd Wolchok, also of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, says that the drug's side effects are minimal. "The most important thing is that they are almost always completely manageable with medication and almost always reversible. The side effects that we usually see are rash and diarrhea," he said.
Mdx-010 may also be effective against other cancers, such as prostate and ovarian cancer.
The drug is still in clinical trials and is not yet FDA approved, but that may not be far off.
Since qualifying for the drug, Creaby said that he had trouble feeling the tumors that were once so prominent.
"Basically everything has regressed," Creaby said. "And they can't find traces of some of them anyplace. So it's a blessing."
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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