The mainstream media should be running weekly headlines updating the public on the latest progress with targeted antibody treatment. For some reason though, for now, if you want to keep up with the latest astounding cancer treatment developments, you'll have to keep tuning in to BEL and Real Science Radio! * Targeted Antibodies Cancer Treatment Revolution: Among the stunning results for targeted antibodies cancer treatment, CBS News reported on 35 terminally-ill advanced-stage leukemia sufferers. The disease went into remission in 94%, or 33 of 35 patients. Dr. Michael Grossbard, New York University's Perlmutter Cancer Center leukemia specialist told CBS News, "Oncologists are reluctant to use the word extraordinary. But these [results] are extraordinary. These are really remarkable findings..." Now this, right up the street from RSR's studio... * ArcherDX in Boulder, Colorado: ArcherDX spearheaded the effort to extend the life of 12-year old Zaida. Real Science Radio host Bob Enyart interviews Archer's CEO Jason Myers to discuss Zaida's case and to get a better understanding both of this revolution in cancer treatment and of how targeted immunotherapy works. Studies in the U.S. and the U.K. are seeing hundreds of patients with many types of cancer virtually "cured", as some oncologists are now putting it. Not every patient though responds well, and some few have even died from the treatment. Update: Sadly, Zaida herself passed away on March 10, 2017 and RSR is hoping to learn the specific cause. Overall though, the widespread success is stunning. ArcherDX provides the technology so that a patient's doctor can find out quickly what specific mutations may be causing the cancer. Now, a growing number of oncologists will be offering their patients the greatest of hope through individualized treatment that, like an archer aiming at a target, just might hit the bullseye. Online at ArcherDX.com, this next-generation sequencing (NGS) firm develops what is called target enrichment chemistry. * Cancers Already Being Successfully Treated: People suffer from more than 100 major types of cancer. And while antibody treatment has resulted in some relatively rare autoimmune or other negative and even lethal side effects, the much more common positive treatment experiences range in degree, from stopping further tumor growth, to actually shrinking tumors, to major remission, and even to apparent cure. The types of cancer already being successfully treated with immunotherapy, using either the inhibitor or the re-targeting approach, include: - Lung cancer (non-small cell with 30-50% response rates as of Feb. 2017) - Leukemia - Hodgkin lymphoma - Non-Hodgkin lymphoma - Lymph node cancer - Melanoma skin cancer - Kidney (renal cell) carcinoma - Bladder (urothelial) cancer - Head cancers - Neck cancers (Please don't hesitate to email updates to this list to [email protected].) * Handy List of Targeted Antibodies Trials, Success Stories, and RSR Broadcasts: The public awareness of the current revolution is cancer antibody treatment should explode from the 2015 to the end of 2017. As with all medicines, patients respond with great variability. However, the following results and ongoing trials though are greatly encouraging: - 2017: Reported by the London Telegraph, "Terminal cancer patients in complete remission after one gene therapy treatment", Of 101 patients suffering in advanced stages aggressive Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, 36% were still in complete remission at six months with 80% seeing cancerous cells shrink by at least half! - 2017: 10%! In a CBS News report of another 12-year-old saved by antibodies, Dr. Steven Rosenberg at the Nat'l Cancer Institute, perhaps the world's leading expert on targeted antibody treatment, estimated, “If you look at all cancer patients, perhaps ten percent can be helped by immunotherapy today. But it's getting better every day." - 2017: 60-year-old has no trace left of his lung and lymph node cancer after targeted immunother