Just five years ago, says institute director Dr. Drew Pardoll, this
method of treating cancer was deemed too experimental to be taken
seriously. Back in 2011, less than 1 percent of lung cancer patients in
the United States received immunotherapy. That number is now 25 percent.
Within one year, Pardoll predicts, it will exceed 50 percent.
By analyzing biopsies of each patient’s tumors, Pardoll and his team
derive a customized formula for unlocking each patient’s immune system,
allowing it to regain control and strike down cancer cells.
Treatment requires a two-hour IV infusion every two weeks for
anywhere from six months to two years, plus a “treatment vaccine” that
may be administered periodically to rev up the immune system. So far,
Pardoll says, only 3 percent of his patients have experienced any side
effects, such as inflammation of the lungs.
Since immunotherapy’s still relatively new, outcomes vary and
long-term results are impossible to gauge, Pardoll says, but he believes
patients respond best when immunotherapies are administered early on,
before their bodies get too beaten up by chemo and radiation.
“In melanoma patients, when immunotherapy treatment is given upfront,
tumor shrinkage of 50 percent or greater occurs in one-third to
one-half of patients,” he says. “The survival rate of one year is 70
percent.” By comparison, when chemo is used for treating melanoma, he
says, one-third of patients respond, but almost all relapse within six
months.
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