Warriors All!
We received good news from the scan results following John’s first 90 days of treatment in a clinical trial combining Keytruda with SD-101 intratumoral injections. More on that below, but first a question …
Anyone ever heard of outbreaks of blisters on tongue/mouth as an immunotherapy side effect? John has had that reaction twice, both times 10 days after treatment. At least we think it's a reaction.
On a brighter note, his scans show that the originally identified cancerous masses have reduced with no new lesions. There also is no evidence of re-emergent cancer in the back of his head where the first mass discovered was surgically removed in September.
The reduction in the left adrenal tumor is “slight,” a few millimeters. The reduction in the deltoid tumor being injected with SD-101 is described as “apparent” but could not be measured because it was difficult to view on the scan. We already figured the once-palpable deltoid mass was nearly gone because we can no longer feel it. Since there’s not much to injected there, his oncologist indicated John could go off the SD-101 – which we were thrilled to hear because he finds it fairly brutal.
The tiny nodules on his lungs that were too scant to even be diagnosed as cancer originally also reduced slightly.
The scans further showed some sort of activity in the lymph nodes, but both the radiologist’s report and the nurse practitioner said that could simply be “reactive” to the therapy.
Exchanged emails but have yet to talk to the doc, which I guess is what happens when you have your scans done the last possible hour of the last possible day before Christmas. But we’re pretty sure we couldn’t have gotten much better results at this point.
Thank you all for your support with everything, including finding a great oncologist in Toni Ribas! This is a wonderful community of warriors that I have come to depend on immensely. Wishing everyone a happy, healthy 2018!
~ Carol
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