Immunotherapy in clinical trial takes one-third of patients from hopelessness to a potential cure

Despite multiple myeloma having been considered incurable, a third of patients in a clinical trial have lived without detectable cancer for five years.

Patients in the trial conducted by Johnson & Johnson researchers had been facing "certain, and extremely painful, death within a year," according to a story by Gina Kolata in yesterday's editions of The New York Times.

But after five years, the immunotherapy developed by Legend Biotech, a company founded in China, seems to have made the cancer disappear in a third of the patients — "a result never before seen in this disease."

Dr. Norman Sharpless

"In my 30 years in oncology, we haven't talked about curing myeloma," the Times quoted Dr. Norman Sharpless," professor of cancer policy and innovation at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and a former director of the National Cancer Institute. "This is the first time we are really talking seriously about cure in one of the worst malignancies imaginable."

The study by Johnson & Johnson, which has an exclusive licensing agreement with Legend Biotech, was published in The Journal of Clinical Oncology and reported yesterday at the annual conference of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

"The Legend immunotherapy is a type known as CAR-T," Kolata's article explains. "It is delivered as an infusion of the patient’s own white blood cells that have been removed and engineered to attack the cancer. The treatment has revolutionized prospects for patients with other types of blood cancer, like leukemia."

Treatments for multiple myeloma are extremely costly. They can run more than $100,000 —  "hideously expensive," according to Dr. Carl June of the University of Pennsylvania. Total cost over the years can be millions of dollars, usually paid by insurers, "and it doesn't even cure you," he told the Times.

Thirty-six thousand Americans each year develop the deadly blood disease, which eats away at bones so it looks as though holes have been punched out in them, elaborates June. Bones can collapse. 

"It's a horrible, horrible death," says June.

More information on clinical trials can be found in Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer, a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten aimed at male caregivers. My other books are MysteryDates — How to keep the sizzle in your relationship; The Roving I, a compilation of 70 of my newspaper columns; and Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates, a whimsical fantasy intended for 6- to 10-year-olds that I co-authored with my then 8-year-old granddaughter. Find out more on my blog, https://woodyweingarten.com.

Column talks of cancer's fiscal, emotional costs

NBC newscaster Tom Brokaw reveals what it's like living with an incurable blood cancer

Tom Brokaw

Tom Brokaw has used The New York Times as a bully pulpit by writing an op-ed column titled "Learning to Live with Cancer."

In today's piece, the NBC special news correspondent talks of being diagnosed, three years ago at age 73, with "an incurable [blood] cancer called multiple myeloma" and a statistical probability of five years to live.

He's since had "chemotherapy, a spinal operation…infusions of bone supplements and drugs to prevent respiratory infection" that put the cancer into remission.

At a cost. 

Financially and emotionally.

"Combating cancer," he writes, "is a full-time job that, in my case, requires 24 pills a day, including one that runs $500 a dose."

Still, the bone damage "brought persistent back pain and unwelcome muscle deterioration."

And, of course, there's the content fatigue. 

But he also talks of befriending others (in person and via email) with terminal diagnoses, some of whom have already died — but focusing on one in particular who's "doing well" 14 years after then-new treatments were applied.

Last year, Brokaw published a book, "A Lucky Life Interrupted," that he said he hoped would help others battling the disease that affects some 27,000 Americans annually.

To learn more about having cancer and aiding a patient with it, consider reading "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.