Update on Health and MDAnderson
REGISTER
The information on this site is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Content within the patient forum is user-generated and has not been reviewed by medical professionals. Other sections of the Melanoma Research Foundation website include information that has been reviewed by medical professionals as appropriate. All medical decisions should be made in consultation with your doctor or other qualified medical professional.

Update on Health and MDAnderson

› Forums › General Melanoma Community › Update on Health and MDAnderson

  • Post
    • September 6, 2017 at 4:57 pm
    BrianP
    Participant

    I'm at MDAnderson right now.  Flew in yesterday morning for scans and met with Dr. Tawbi this morning.  As far as MDAnderson and getting to and from the airport I had no problems.  To be honest I couldn't tell anything had happened here from my transit from the airport.  I guess there's still a lot of problems on the west side of the city.  Everything seems pretty smooth at MDAnderson except for the Infusion Therapy department.  I waited 2.5 hours to get a port accessed and a lady next to me waited 4 hours.  Not sure if that was Harvey related or not.  The port access service is always bad but not that bad.

    Scans went well.  Still stable with one tumor slightly smaller.  I'm 9 months out from my CAR-T therapy and 6 months from my last Ipi infusion and seem to still be responding.  Dr. Tawbi is extremely pleased.  Says he will be even more optimistic at the one year mark if things are good and extremely optimistic at the 2 year mark which really made me feel smart because that's exactly what I told my wife before he walked into the room.

    I wanted to share this trial with the board.

    https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03131908?term=%22melanoma%22+%22MDanderson%22&recrs=a&cntry1=NA%3AUS&state1=NA%3AUS%3ATX&rank=3

    Dr. Tawbi and his colleagues seem to be very optimistic about this trial at MDAnderson.  If someone has progressed on PD-1 this would be one I would consider.

    Brian

     

Viewing 7 reply threads
  • Replies
      • September 6, 2017 at 8:22 pm
      ed williams
      Participant

      Hi Brian, glad to here the good news!!!!

      • September 6, 2017 at 9:30 pm
      Jahendry12
      Participant

      Excellent – thanks for the update Brian. 'Extremely pleased' is great!  Thanks for sharing the trial info as well.

       

       

      • September 7, 2017 at 12:04 am
      jennunicorn
      Participant

      Good news Brian, thanks for the update! My scan day is tomorrow (fingers crossed)!

        • September 7, 2017 at 1:31 am
        vivian
        Participant

        Brian, this is wonderful news!  So happy that good things are happening!

        Lear

         

         

         

      • September 7, 2017 at 2:53 pm
      Bubbles
      Participant

      Hey Brian,

      Stable and shrinking are good to hear, indeed!!! So glad things are going well for you!!  Thanks for the info as well.  celeste

        • September 8, 2017 at 1:41 am
        BrianP
        Participant

        Bubbles,

        Thanks Celeste.  That PI3K trial did sound promising.  Dr. Tawbi really seemed excited about it.  I'm definitely going to be watching it.  Dr. Tawbi explained they think that pathway may play a very significant part in why so many don't respond to immunotherapy.  He said so far all their efforts to block it have also resulted in blocking the T-cells.  They finally figured out how to block this pathway without blocking the T-cells.  Only proven in mice so far.  We should know soon with the first 40 patients in this trial if they are on to something.

      • September 7, 2017 at 3:12 pm
      WithinMySkin
      Participant

      Thats great news, Brian!! Stable and Shrinking are both amazing words to hear!

      Lauren

      • September 8, 2017 at 1:42 am
      BrianP
      Participant

      Thanks for the well wishes everyone.

        • September 8, 2017 at 8:55 pm
        jbronicki
        Participant

        Great news on the scans Brian!  As someone who lives in the Houston area, I agree, it looks surprisingly normal on the surface, especially over in the Med Center!  Glad you had no logisitcal challenges as well!

      • September 9, 2017 at 9:39 am
      Mat
      Participant

      Brian, great news!  Really glad to hear that you're doing well generally and specifically that the treatment is promising.

        • September 11, 2017 at 8:24 pm
        Maureen038
        Participant

        Awesome news Brian!! I'm so happy for you and your family!!

        Maureen

      • September 23, 2017 at 2:30 pm
      dmturner
      Participant

      GREAT NEWS!!

      I just printed out the clinical trial info.  I have progressed on Yervoy, Yervoy & Opvido and on the clinical trial I am on now.  I am going to MD Anderson next Sunday, to get ready to do TIL or harvest a tumor.  But I still need to be on some kind of therapy during that 3 months.

        • September 24, 2017 at 4:45 pm
        BrianP
        Participant

        Good luck dmturner.  Sorry to hear about your progressions up to this point.

Viewing 7 reply threads
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
About the MRF Patient Forum

The MRF Patient Forum is the oldest and largest online community of people affected by melanoma. It is designed to provide peer support and information to caregivers, patients, family and friends. There is no better place to discuss different parts of your journey with this cancer and find the friends and support resources to make that journey more bearable.

The information on the forum is open and accessible to everyone. To add a new topic or to post a reply, you must be a registered user. Please note that you will be able to post both topics and replies anonymously even though you are logged in. All posts must abide by MRF posting policies.

Popular Topics