Former President Jimmy Carter’s support of immunotherapy that followed his recovery from metastatic melanoma at the age of 91 may have popularized the treatment for both patients and oncologists, according to an article published in The Washington Post. After being diagnosed with melanoma that had metastasized to his liver and brain in August 2015, Mr. Carter underwent treatment with radiation therapy and the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab—and was cancer-free by 2016. His survival sparked a series of government grants and research initiatives that led to the approval of immunotherapy to treat over 20 different tumor types. However, experts stressed that immunotherapy has shown varied response rates in some tumor types, such as lung cancer, and has been totally ineffective in others. Experts noted that the current dilemma reflects issues researchers faced when first exploring cancer immunotherapy in the early 1900s—where the medication proved toxic and ineffective and didn’t resurface until the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the CTLA-4 inhibitor ipilimumab in 2011. Six years later, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy was approved to target hematologic malignancies. CAR T-cell therapies have also proven effective in metastatic melanoma and have boosted 5-year survival rates to 50%.
After Mr. Carter entered hospice care on February 18, 2023, some speculated that his cancer had returned—though experts indicated that because he had been cancer-free since 2015, the decision to enter hospice care was likely the result of a separate illness and not a cancer relapse. Regardless, experts have commented that Mr. Carter’s medical decision transparency has empowered individuals and their health-care providers to more openly discuss treatment options.