ASCO 2013: Humanity Meets Immunity

http://www.onclive.com/publications/obtn/2013/July-2013/ASCO-2013-Humanity-Meets-Immunity

http://www.onclive.com/publications/obtn/2013/July-2013/ASCO-2013-Humanity-Meets-Immunity

Jimmy B (medical researcher) has been preaching this for years since he gained the NED status then figured out the T-cell development timing between his -"failed" Ipi trial that was followed by a standard HD IL-2 regime. I was sorry to see where they state that large tumor regressions were only observed in 31% of concurrently treated patients. I had hoped for higher since some trials have reported around 50% of participants had favorable results for the PD-1 alone. "Of importance was the observation that concurrent therapy was more active when compared with the agents given sequentially".

The way I read the article it certainly implies that all the participants in the 31% received both the Ipi and PD-1. Wish they had answered the PDL1 question. It is still under debate since the PD-1 also works in some people with no PDL1 expression

This is just a good step. Working up on things but not near a magic shotgun yet. Still a long ways to go for most melanoma patients. Seen too many things that people jump on as cures over the past 10 years when they were just steps that may help some, .

I was just surprised at the 31% response rate for trial participants. Do note that this was also for >80% reduction in tumor size. Too many details left out so far to know all I want to about it. Not sure just how these numbers relate to the 4-6% permanent CURE rate of IL-2 And 20-21% positive response rate from IL-2. Still a major numbers game for pharmaceuticals!

I was just referred to another study (2001) that is the first I've seen that ties IL-2 responsiveness to any particular type of Melanoma. 

http://jco.ascopubs.org/content/19/15/3477.full.pdf%20html#ref-8         says that "53.6% of patients with only subcutaneous and/or cutaneous metastases responded"  Only 12% of other melanomas reached the response abjective which was a 25% reduction is all tumors size.  Under the 2001 study I am not even considered a partial responder.  All the 49 bags of IKL-2 did for me was to kill my liver tumors aand stop all growth in my i nnumerabale lumg tumors for 20 months.  WHAT'S in a definitioin?