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.
