Impressive research

[kellyOd]

I have done my fair share of research in the last 24 hours. Excuse my elementary concepts to understand the lingo. I have found that radiation therapy in conjunction with immunotherapy seems to have a systemic response. Essentially leading a horse to water. Again a lot of this is dependent upon things such as tumor burden etc. But this research has me more hopeful. If we have a single lesion - we need to make sure this is INDEED what we think it is before the team starts trying to change the current therapy. I will highly suggest an addition of RT to the current plan. Waiting on word from them currently

[missyrand Ambassador]

For those of you following this train of thought with Kelly, there is some evidence that in some cases use of radiation prior to or concurrent with immunotherapy produces what is called the "abscopal effect". Although many clinical trials are testing immunotherapy and radiation in patients with cancer, no large clinical trial has yet provided evidence to establish how the radiation should be delivered—and in which doses—to try to elicit the abscopal effect. Ionizing radiation can reduce tumor growth outside the field of radiation, known as the abscopal effect. The theory is that radiation "jump starts" an immune response not just to the targeted tumor, but to other solid tumors present in other parts of the body. This is not a well studied area and so far has not been reliably produced in patients: some are just lucky they get this response.

From 1/20 National Cancer Institute staff commentary:

Although many clinical trials are testing immunotherapy and radiation in patients with cancer, no large clinical trial has yet provided evidence to establish how the radiation should be delivered—and in which doses—to try to elicit the abscopal effect.

cancer.gov/news-events/canc....

Read more about the Abscopal Effect from the perspective of radiologists in this peer reviewed article from 2019: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

Hopefully this helps us all to learn a bit more about this and what part the abscopal effect may have in our individual cases as well as across all cancer tumors. Knowledge helps us ask targeted questions along with inquiring as to the liklihood that any particular treatment approach will extend the life of our loved one living with melanoma, improve the life quality, halt the progress of the melanoma, or provide our favorite phrase No Evidence of Disease.

Kelly, thank you for allowing us to learn with you and Ryan.

Peace,

missy

[kellyOd in reply to missyrand]

Yes thank you missy for providing links! As we know not everyone responds to the same things, if at all. So it is good to shed light on that reality. But it does help very much to try and target these questions as you said to try and see if that is an option in a persons treatment regimen. There is so far - interesting evidence although as said by missy not huge patient cohorts.

[doulagirl]

Love it Kelly!!! Thank you for your research and thank you Missy for providing the context and links. I will catch up on this!

[SGHSweethearts]

Kelly, I so appreciate all of your hours of research which is going to benefit so many of us, I however am so sorry that you are having to do all this. Forgive me, but I am not totally understanding this I guess. Is the immunotherapy no longer working, and Ryan is developing new tumors?

God, Can Ryan catch a break.

Sending all my love and prayers that something works for Ryan.

Michele