“For me, it’s kind of a miracle. I have the second chance in life that I never thought I’d have.”
Center for Immunotherapy
Although most patients on immunotherapies experience few — if any — side effects related to treatment, serious side effects can occur. Find out which symptoms to watch for.
Roswell Park is one of very few institutions in the United States equipped to offer clinical trials of a full range of immunotherapies. How do these treatments work, and what new immunotherapy clinical trials are underway or close to being launched?
Clinical trials are a key reason why childhood cancer treatments and survival rates have improved significantly in recent years.
“Initially, ovarian cancer, melanoma, and some sarcomas are the three main targets,” says Dr. Koya, “but the clinical trial is open for patients with other cancers who meet the eligibility requirements."
Collected last week from a patient with late-stage ovarian cancer, these are not ordinary T cells; they have been altered and multiplied in the hope that when they are given back to her, they will launch a devastating attack on her cancer cells.
Read part I of our series about the new complex immunotherapy trials available here at Roswell Park Cancer Institute.
You may not realize it, but your body is home to a lot of microbes — way more than you might think. In healthy humans, “microbial cells outnumber human cells by about ten to one,” according to the Human Microbiome Project of the National Institutes of Health. Most of them, called gut flora, live in your digestive system, especially in the colon. Others live in distinct communities in and on your body, in different types of environments — hot or cold, moist or dry.
OK, time to stifle the Thanksgiving jokes about turkey making you drowsy. Yes, there’s an amino acid called tryptophan in turkey, and it does help your body produce a chemical called serotonin, which promotes a good night’s sleep. But chicken, beef, nuts, and cheese also contain tryptophan, and no one’s pointing the finger at them. So if you nod off after dinner, it’s probably due to all the carbs in that pile of brown-and-serve rolls you scarfed down.
The report released yesterday by the Cancer Moonshot Blue Ribbon Panel, a group convened by Vice President Biden last winter, highlighted some big ideas and high-impact opportunities in oncology.
During the Buffalo Cancer Moonshot Summit, Roswell Park joined a national conversation on how to end cancer as we know it. This initiative, backed by Vice President Joe Biden, intends to double the speed of cancer research and remove barriers to clinical trials by improving access to information.
If you are considering starting a clinical trial, either because your doctor recommended it or because you or an advocate found a trial that seems appropriate, I have this easy advice: “GO FOR IT!” What have you got to lose? Trials are safe, well researched and documented. You, as a patient, are monitored and cared for like you never thought possible. You have so much to gain!