The Colon Club

I stumbled upon this NYT article about oncologists trying immunotherapy as a last shot, even if there isn’t any clear evidence (eg biomarker) that it will work in a specific patient. The article is about prostate cancer, but with MSS TMB moderate/high responders, similar arguments can be made for CRC.

Has anyone discussed trying an immunotherapy “Hail Mary” with their oncologist? Do you know of someone that tried it?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/health/doctors-cancer-immunotherapy.amp.html

I can't answer your questions but thanks for the article.
Personally, I don't see any ethical conundrum in giving immunotherapy as a last shot if the patient doesn't have any side effects. I mean, it's not as if you were ruining the last months of his life with chemo...
That's my two cents...

Have you red this thread by Jack & Katies mom?

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=60593

Lee

Pyro70 wrote:I

Has anyone discussed trying an immunotherapy “Hail Mary” with their oncologist? Do you know of someone that tried it?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/health/doctors-cancer-immunotherapy.amp.html

You might want to look up "Beansmama". She was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer. Every traditional chemo regiment failed her, she was months away from death. As a last attempt, they put her on Keytruda, and it was successful in shrinking her tumors in her liver to get her to surgery. She had a very major surgery and survived it. The tumor they removed was dead. She passed a few months later, not from cancer butt rather a blood clot. What is important, she died cancer free and she would have been very proud of that fact.

Because of her and people like her, Keytruda, I believe, has been approved by the FDA for colon cancer patients.

There are a few others around here, hopefully they will chime in soon,

Lee