› Forums › General Melanoma Community › What does Ipi actually do?
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POW.
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- February 14, 2014 at 2:17 pm
My hubby has extensive mets throughout groin, liver, spleen, bones. He has just started ipi, but as I reading up on it I'm a bit unclear – if it works, is there a chance it may actually eliminate these mets? Or just arrest them? Or prevent from spreading further?
If it halts or slows things down for now, but the cancer comes back in future months or years – do we do the ipi again, unless something else has come out by then? mm
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- February 14, 2014 at 2:32 pm
Michele
The answer to your questions is yes. It some cases it has eliminated mets and in a lot of these cases it seems to be durable. In some cases there's a partial response where some mets shrink and others don't. In some cases they have shown patitents that partially responded and later needed more treatment responded again. Unfortunately there are some that don't seem to have any positive response to Ipi.
Dr. Wolchok describes the way Ipi works this way. The CTLA-4 antibody that Ipi works to inhibit is like the brakes on your car. This brake is used to slow down your immune system so it doesn't go wild and start attacking things in your body that it shouldn't (when this happens you have auto-immune type diseases). Basically Ipi cuts the brake line so your immune system is allowed to go at full throttle and hopefully overcome the melanoma.
Here's a link to an older Ipi video from MIF. It's a little dated but Dr. Wolchok always does a good job of explaining things.
Good luck.
Brian
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- February 14, 2014 at 2:32 pm
Michele
The answer to your questions is yes. It some cases it has eliminated mets and in a lot of these cases it seems to be durable. In some cases there's a partial response where some mets shrink and others don't. In some cases they have shown patitents that partially responded and later needed more treatment responded again. Unfortunately there are some that don't seem to have any positive response to Ipi.
Dr. Wolchok describes the way Ipi works this way. The CTLA-4 antibody that Ipi works to inhibit is like the brakes on your car. This brake is used to slow down your immune system so it doesn't go wild and start attacking things in your body that it shouldn't (when this happens you have auto-immune type diseases). Basically Ipi cuts the brake line so your immune system is allowed to go at full throttle and hopefully overcome the melanoma.
Here's a link to an older Ipi video from MIF. It's a little dated but Dr. Wolchok always does a good job of explaining things.
Good luck.
Brian
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- February 14, 2014 at 2:32 pm
Michele
The answer to your questions is yes. It some cases it has eliminated mets and in a lot of these cases it seems to be durable. In some cases there's a partial response where some mets shrink and others don't. In some cases they have shown patitents that partially responded and later needed more treatment responded again. Unfortunately there are some that don't seem to have any positive response to Ipi.
Dr. Wolchok describes the way Ipi works this way. The CTLA-4 antibody that Ipi works to inhibit is like the brakes on your car. This brake is used to slow down your immune system so it doesn't go wild and start attacking things in your body that it shouldn't (when this happens you have auto-immune type diseases). Basically Ipi cuts the brake line so your immune system is allowed to go at full throttle and hopefully overcome the melanoma.
Here's a link to an older Ipi video from MIF. It's a little dated but Dr. Wolchok always does a good job of explaining things.
Good luck.
Brian
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- February 14, 2014 at 3:10 pm
That covers the questions quite well. It doesn't work in many cases but in some, looks like it can be a home run, not just a base hit. Don't be suprised it at the first scan the tumors aactually look larger. They often enlarge before the shrink. It can take a long time for a response.to be obtained..
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- February 14, 2014 at 3:10 pm
That covers the questions quite well. It doesn't work in many cases but in some, looks like it can be a home run, not just a base hit. Don't be suprised it at the first scan the tumors aactually look larger. They often enlarge before the shrink. It can take a long time for a response.to be obtained..
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- February 14, 2014 at 3:10 pm
That covers the questions quite well. It doesn't work in many cases but in some, looks like it can be a home run, not just a base hit. Don't be suprised it at the first scan the tumors aactually look larger. They often enlarge before the shrink. It can take a long time for a response.to be obtained..
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- February 14, 2014 at 6:11 pm
One thing I'll add Michele is watch for headaches with your husband. Not sure if you've seen some of the theads lately about Ipi and side effects it can have on the pituitary gland. If your husband starts to experience headaches that are persistent for more than a couple days have it checked out. Mine felt like a sinus infection at first but eventually moved to my whole head. I think it's something if treated early is no big deal but if you let it go too long it can permanently damage the pituitary gland.
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- February 14, 2014 at 6:26 pm
Thanks for the tip! So far he has nausea, very mild diahrrea, and a lot of pain in the groin area – he had lymph glands there removed Jan. 8, but that is also an area of bone mets, so I'm concerned about that. We meet with our doc next Wednes so we'll get his perspective then . . .
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- February 14, 2014 at 6:26 pm
Thanks for the tip! So far he has nausea, very mild diahrrea, and a lot of pain in the groin area – he had lymph glands there removed Jan. 8, but that is also an area of bone mets, so I'm concerned about that. We meet with our doc next Wednes so we'll get his perspective then . . .
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- February 14, 2014 at 6:26 pm
Thanks for the tip! So far he has nausea, very mild diahrrea, and a lot of pain in the groin area – he had lymph glands there removed Jan. 8, but that is also an area of bone mets, so I'm concerned about that. We meet with our doc next Wednes so we'll get his perspective then . . .
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- February 14, 2014 at 7:23 pm
Shortly after I started Ipi I had a node in my groin that become enlarged and was quite sore to the touch. It resolved by itself over the course of about a week. I haven't read it published anywhere but I don't think it's that uncommon for patients to get an inflamed lymph node while on Ipi. What immunological effect is causing it I don't know but hopefully that's all your husband is experiencing as well. Good luck on Wednesday.
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- February 14, 2014 at 7:23 pm
Shortly after I started Ipi I had a node in my groin that become enlarged and was quite sore to the touch. It resolved by itself over the course of about a week. I haven't read it published anywhere but I don't think it's that uncommon for patients to get an inflamed lymph node while on Ipi. What immunological effect is causing it I don't know but hopefully that's all your husband is experiencing as well. Good luck on Wednesday.
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- February 18, 2014 at 6:05 pm
I wish I'd had known about the inflamed lymph nodes 5 months ago! I underwent 20 radiation treatments to my right armpit because of an inflamed lymph node that was very painful. Now, we don't know whether the Ipi is shrinking all my spots or the radiation is. The good news is that it's all shrunken, especially the swollen lymph node. The bad news is that the radiation was by far the worst experience of my treatment.
Good luck to all of you!
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- February 18, 2014 at 6:05 pm
I wish I'd had known about the inflamed lymph nodes 5 months ago! I underwent 20 radiation treatments to my right armpit because of an inflamed lymph node that was very painful. Now, we don't know whether the Ipi is shrinking all my spots or the radiation is. The good news is that it's all shrunken, especially the swollen lymph node. The bad news is that the radiation was by far the worst experience of my treatment.
Good luck to all of you!
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- February 18, 2014 at 6:27 pm
Dave, I am sorry that you had a bad experience with radiation. However, it might make you feel better about things to know that there are more and more reports of radiation treatments enhancing the effect of ipi. Not only does the combination seem to work better on the irradiated tumors, but the immune system seems to get "revved up" and goes out to seek-and-destroy other tumors all over your body. So, actually, you may be benefitting from both the ipi and the radiation. Regardless, congratulations on having such a good outcome!
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- February 18, 2014 at 6:27 pm
Dave, I am sorry that you had a bad experience with radiation. However, it might make you feel better about things to know that there are more and more reports of radiation treatments enhancing the effect of ipi. Not only does the combination seem to work better on the irradiated tumors, but the immune system seems to get "revved up" and goes out to seek-and-destroy other tumors all over your body. So, actually, you may be benefitting from both the ipi and the radiation. Regardless, congratulations on having such a good outcome!
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- February 18, 2014 at 6:27 pm
Dave, I am sorry that you had a bad experience with radiation. However, it might make you feel better about things to know that there are more and more reports of radiation treatments enhancing the effect of ipi. Not only does the combination seem to work better on the irradiated tumors, but the immune system seems to get "revved up" and goes out to seek-and-destroy other tumors all over your body. So, actually, you may be benefitting from both the ipi and the radiation. Regardless, congratulations on having such a good outcome!
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- February 18, 2014 at 6:05 pm
I wish I'd had known about the inflamed lymph nodes 5 months ago! I underwent 20 radiation treatments to my right armpit because of an inflamed lymph node that was very painful. Now, we don't know whether the Ipi is shrinking all my spots or the radiation is. The good news is that it's all shrunken, especially the swollen lymph node. The bad news is that the radiation was by far the worst experience of my treatment.
Good luck to all of you!
-
- February 14, 2014 at 7:23 pm
Shortly after I started Ipi I had a node in my groin that become enlarged and was quite sore to the touch. It resolved by itself over the course of about a week. I haven't read it published anywhere but I don't think it's that uncommon for patients to get an inflamed lymph node while on Ipi. What immunological effect is causing it I don't know but hopefully that's all your husband is experiencing as well. Good luck on Wednesday.
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- February 14, 2014 at 6:11 pm
One thing I'll add Michele is watch for headaches with your husband. Not sure if you've seen some of the theads lately about Ipi and side effects it can have on the pituitary gland. If your husband starts to experience headaches that are persistent for more than a couple days have it checked out. Mine felt like a sinus infection at first but eventually moved to my whole head. I think it's something if treated early is no big deal but if you let it go too long it can permanently damage the pituitary gland.
-
- February 14, 2014 at 6:11 pm
One thing I'll add Michele is watch for headaches with your husband. Not sure if you've seen some of the theads lately about Ipi and side effects it can have on the pituitary gland. If your husband starts to experience headaches that are persistent for more than a couple days have it checked out. Mine felt like a sinus infection at first but eventually moved to my whole head. I think it's something if treated early is no big deal but if you let it go too long it can permanently damage the pituitary gland.
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