With our near-constant sun-drenched days, it’s no surprise how prevalent skin cancer or melanoma is in our state. In fact, Arizona’s melanoma rate is approximately 28% to 40% higher than the rest of the United States. Now, Banner MD Anderson in Phoenix is offering a groundbreaking therapy for melanoma patients.
Dr. Yazan Samhouri, Banner MD Anderson, joined “Arizona Horizon” to speak about the new breakthrough.
The cutting-edge option is called tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy – it’s the first and only FDA-approved treatment for previously treated, unresectable or metastatic melanoma. Essentially, TIL therapy harvests a patient’s own immune cells, grows them into billions of cancer-fighting cells in a lab over three weeks, then reinfuses them into the tumor.
Dr. Samhouri explained that when the cells are administered back to the patient, they comes back stronger and they “can kill the cancer cells”.
Those who would be best fit for this course of care would be patients with stage four melanoma who have not responded to a first or second round of therapy. Introducing this new type of cell therapy provides hope for these patients, according to Dr. Samhouri.
Some symptoms of melanoma include changes in skin lesions like moles or swollen lymph nodes. Dr. Samhouri shared that if anyone notices changes in color or size of any moles, they should got them checked out by a doctor.
Looking ahead to the future of this implementation of this therapy, one focus is to continue to be a hub for this specific type of care for residents in The Valley. Another focus is to improve the technology of this cell therapy. As of now, the percentage of patient response to the therapy is 30-40% and Dr. Samhouri would like that number to grow to upwards of 100%.
