Dear Ann,
I saw your post so thought I should log on and reply.
I have been on TVEC plus keytruda since last November and in my case it seems to help.
I developed in transits on my left leg two years ago – they put me on keytruda and that solved one of them but the other one persisted, growing very slowly. After one year of slow growth my doctors were recommending surgery. But after a second opinion we decided to go for TVEC (but keeping keytruda too). This had always been in the back of all of our minds as an option, but my doctors did not think my insurance would approve the combo. But insurance did, after appeal, and it seems to be working. I dont want to jinx it but the tumour started to shrink after three months (it probably grew at first) and has been slowly getting smaller.
I like the TVEC approach – it inflames things to tell the immune system where to attack. Kind of a weird thing to do but makes sense. I would try it in conjunction with keytruda though. Your side effects from immunotherapy may have been because of the ipi so you may be ok with pembro/keytruda.
With my first few combos I had terrible fever, I should have taken a day off work after treatment (not just day of) – keep this in mind but I think 1-2 days sick leave should cover it, if needed. The process takes time as they have to measure your lesions, work out how much to inject, then inject with ultrasound guidance. THey have to unfreeze my meds (my hospital does not have the right fridge?!). You get ultrasounds every 2 weeks so you can see whats happening and if things go bad then change plan rather than have to wait three months for the next scan.
I think in my hospital I am one of the first to be doing this. there is another patient in my hospital and dont think the results there are as good as mine are so far. but in my case – which seems similar to yours, regional intransits and not too many tumours – it has made a huge difference. but see if your doctor thinks combining with keytruda is possible too
good luck Mark
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