› Forums › General Melanoma Community › Keytruda treatment
- This topic has 9 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 4 months ago by
Nympha.
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- December 12, 2018 at 10:27 am
Hello. My father was diagnosed with MM in april 2018 with 3C stage, breslow 2,1mm. All his organs are clear, but it started to metastate into his skin arround a scar. He has a lot of ulcers, which are damn painful. They grow everyday very fast. He is now on keytruda treatment, he has already taken two of them, but there are still no results. Ulcers are still growing, look like horns. How long does it take when keytruda will stop growing these ulcers (if..)? We are so hopeless. He has such burning pain, no medicament helps, just standing, watching him suffer, we are helpless 🙁
So beautiful person, kind, allways ready to help everybody…
Thank you all.
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- December 12, 2018 at 3:50 pm
I am sorry for what you and your father are going through. Immunotherapy works…but responses can be slow, usually occurring in about 3 months, or longer. Here is a graph that might interest you (understand that Keytruda [pembrolizumab] is an anti-PD-1 product as is Opdivo [nivolizumab] with the same response rates, side effects, ect.) –
Here is a primer for melanoma treatment that I put together that might be helpful as well:
I don't know if it is an option where you are…but if your father's lesions are as superficial as they sound…I would certainly be asking his docs if intralesional therapy (they are discussed in the primer) could be added. These meds [PV-10, CAVATAK, T-VEC] are injected directly into superficial lesions and have good results in getting rid of the lesion into which it is injected as well as by-stander lesions that are NOT injected….esp when given with a systemic therapy like Keytruda.
Hope this helps. I wish you my best. Celeste
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- December 12, 2018 at 6:46 pm
Dear Celeste, many thanks for your very helpful reply. We are lost sometimes. I went through many internet sites and tried to find somebody with the same problem, but mostly I have found ppl with mets in organs, not in skin. I am sending you a picture how my father’s mets looks like. https://imgbb.com/upload
It’s still growing, higher and higher and that red area is spreading to sides.
Thanks for your advices, truly. You are very kind. I will ask more our doctor. I ve also heard about vemurafenib/zelboraf. That it can fight with these ulcers.
Sorry for my English 🙂 -
- December 12, 2018 at 6:52 pm
Link again https://ibb.co/bbjzcjS -
- December 12, 2018 at 7:16 pm
Yes, if your father's tumors are BRAF positive (that is something that the docs have to test them for) the combination of a BRAF inhibitor with a MEK inhibitor can be very effective….very rapidly. These drugs are called targeted therapy. The only down side is that many folks only gain an effect for about 6-9 months and then the tumors start to grow again. (Although…there are exceptions to this…as some folks have been well maintained on this treatment for years!) Therefore, sometimes targeted therapy is used initially to get the tumors under control and the patient is switched to immunotherapy (like Keytruda) before tumor "work around" can begin. Read the primer. It goes through all of this. Make sure you dad is seeing a melanoma specialist and ask about all these things – treatment with targeted therapy as well as the possibility of adding intralesional therapy.
Hope this helps. Hang in there. Your father is lucky to have you as an advocate. yours, celeste
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- December 12, 2018 at 8:47 pm
I had mets in skin as well as organs. Mine were not nearly as severe as your father's. I had red, tough, knotty places around my navel that went down into abdomen and knots on my back. The place around my navel was probably 6" in diameter. They thought it was cellulitis to begin with as I had just had surgery. After antibiotics didn't work and they did a Ct scan, they discovered it was metastatic melanoma. I was placed on Keytruda and the knots on my back disappeared. The places around my navel left a little at a time. It took 6 months or more so hang in there! Celeste is a great source of knowledge. I can offer moral support and prayers. Please keep us posted!
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- December 13, 2018 at 8:14 pm
Dear Dwarla, you can’t imagine how my heart has just started to shine now! Your message filled my heart with a big hope and joy. I am so sorry, that you suffered so much. I can fully imagine now.. It was only some sad reality show from tv, until my father got this illness. My brother’s wife (29yo) get cancer of womb (do not know to say diagnose in english) in the same time as my father get his.. So this year is very unhappy for us.. But we all sticked together, live more together and value each other more, take care more.. All of our close family, we all become one.. We don’t allow this illness to take our lovely father so easy, however he is 67 yo. We will fight. Thank you for everything.. Much. Wish you all the best.
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- December 13, 2018 at 5:56 pm
Hi Nympha, im sorry to hear of your father’s diagnosis of MM, theres a lady in my infusion room that also has Multiple Myeloma like your father and its no joke either, she schooled me on what it is exactly (basicly cancer of the Blood)..Im happy to know your Dads doing Keytruda, i did not know they use Keytruda for MM..its a good med i use to take it as well. I wish you both well for im in the same fight but with Melanoma…take care…-
- December 13, 2018 at 8:45 pm
Hello Mike, many thanks for your support. Actually, my father has malignant melanoma, in our country we call it MM (maybe you call like that something different) I am really so sorry for all ppl who suffer with this supid illness. Some time before I had the feeling that something like this can’t happend to anyone of my family.. Nowadays two of my close family members have cancer, and I watch them daily fighting.. My husband’s mother died on melanoma when he was just 8yo boy. On his birthday.. But that time (80s) there were no other cure instead of radiation and chemotherapy. Today she would have higher chance to get through it.. I have one friend. She was 3B stage with melanoma, she took intronA and she is really very well now.
Hope everything will be fine.. Wish you all the best. We all fight in this life.. And many of us don’t know yet.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
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