The Skin Cancer Foundation estimates that one in five Americans will develop skin cancer, the most prevalent form of cancer in the U.S., during their lifetime with odds for developing the disease increasing in individuals who are regularly exposed to the harmful UV rays of the sun and indoor tanning beds.
Skin cancer patients, however, may find hope in the results of a clinical trial of a drug that appeared to have "miraculously" cured a man who was dying of skin cancer. In the trial, investigators involved 411 advanced-stage melanoma patients to evaluate pembrolizumab (MK-3475), an immunotherapy drug which works by shutting down the cancers' ability to protect themselves from the body's immune system allowing the immune system to attack the disease often in combination with other treatments.
Pembrolizumab was tested on patients with melanoma, the deadliest type of skin cancer, because survival is grim in those who have the advanced form of the disease. The clinical trial showed promising results as 69 percent of the participants who all had the advanced form of melanoma and poor prognosis, were still alive a year after starting immunotherapy, a big improvement in survival rate as typically, only 10 percent of men and 35 percent of women who have the condition can survive a year.
A 64-year-old patient even appeared to have been cured. Warwick Steele could hardly walk before the beginning of his treatment because his melanoma has already spread to his lungs but after only three months of getting pembrolizumab infusions, doctors found that his tumors were almost gone. Melanoma that has already spread to other parts of the body can be hard to treat but the man's tumors have shrunk and even exhibit no signs of returning.
"We cannot say for certain that he's been cured, but he is doing very well," said David Chao, a physician from the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust in London. "He was aware that without an effective treatment his survival prospects were not good - maybe months."
Despite that the participants in the trial have poor prognosis, 62 percent of them were still alive 18 months after starting treatment with 80 percent of them responding to the drug. The investigators also noted that 72 percent of the participants had tumor shrinkage, 39 percent of whom had tumors shrank by more than half their original size.
Results of the trial were presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology conference which was held from May 30 to June 3 in Chicago, Illinois.
