Health Spotlight | Revolutionary cellular therapy for melanoma
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — As we head into summer, here is a reminder to put on sunscreen before you head out the door.
More than eight thousand will die from melanoma. Now, a revolutionary therapy is giving new hope to patients battling this deadly disease.
Steve Balzer spent day after day, year after year, outside working as an electric company lineman.
“Next thing I know this lump’s popping up, it’s maybe as big as your thumb,” Balzer said.
As we head into summer, here is a reminder to put on sunscreen before you head out the door.
More than eight thousand will die from them. Now a revolutionary therapy is giving new hope to patients battling this deadly disease.
Steve Balzer spent day after day, year after year, outside working as an electric company lineman.
“Next thing I know this lump’s popping up, it’s maybe as big as your thumb,” Balzer said.
Then he was diagnosed with stage four melanoma. For patients like Steve, surgery is the main option.
“Skin cancer has never responded to the older chemotherapies,” said Oncologist Dr. Ronan Kelly. “In the last ten years, we’ve seen dramatic advances with immunotherapies, but unfortunately, patients do progress after a period of time.”
Now, Kelly is one of the first to use the newly FDA-approved TIL cellular therapy for patients with metastatic melanoma.
“It is a second-generation immunotherapy. It’s utilizing their own immune cells, which have proven themselves to be stronger than their other immune cells,” Kelly said.
TIL cells are in immune cells that look for and attack cancer cells. This new therapy helps make a patient’s TIL cells stronger, so they can beat cancer.
“What we do is, we take them from the tumor, we grow them in the laboratory, and we give them back as an infusion of their own strong immune cells to overwhelm the tumor,” Kelly said.
Kelly believes it may soon be the first treatment to treat other solid tumors that haven’t responded to traditional treatments like surgery, radiation, and chemo.
To cut your risk of getting melanoma, be sure to use sunscreen when you head outdoors and re-apply it frequently.
This story was created from a script aired on WISH-TV. Health Spotlight is presented by Community Health Network.