Our First Meeting With Dr.Weber

Four and a half years ago when Don was first diagnosed with melanoma and we were told that it was deep and they were concerned that it might travel somewhere else through the blood system, I did some research on line.  I found that when melanoma travels it usually goes to the lungs, its called Metastatic Melanoma.  It pretty much said that there really was no treatment for it.  It scared the dickens out of me.  As a matter of fact, I never showed him the article.  When the oncologist told him he had spots on his lung and that it might be melanoma, his surgeon said that 2 years ago they would have told him to enjoy the time he had because not much could be done about it but a lot had been done in the past year with wonderful results.  As a matter of fact one drug had just gotten approved by FDA. 

Well Metastatic Melanoma is exactly what he has.  He will be in a clinical trial but there won't be an opening for 3-4 weeks.  Since this tumor on his liver seemed to have grown quite fast, the first thing they're doing is doing a CT scan on Wednesday to see how much it has grown since his last scan.  If it's growing too rapidly he can't wait 3-4 weeks, therefore he will have to go into another study until the tumor shrinks.

The study we're hoping for will be treating the immune system.  There is no placebo used.  What they are studying is the results of using a combination of 2 drugs.  One group will get an infusion of drug A every 2 weeks for 6 doses then an infusion of drug B every 3 weeks for 4 doses.  The other group will get drugs A & B in reverse order.  This will take 6 months.  The side effects are minimal and they will watch him like a hawk.  He will have to go through testing at several intervals to see how his body is reacting.  One is taking white blood cells to see how his immune system is reacting.  They will even do a genetic test to see if he is likely to respond well or not.

I'll let you know how the CT scan goes, he has to call Dr.Weber on Thursday for the results.