To All: I have a friend with a re-occurance of melanoma and need your help. Several years ago she had a small mole diagnosed and removed (stage I). At the time she was told there was only a 10% chance of re-occurance. Unfortunately, she just had a fairly good tumor removed, along with lymph. Biopsy revealed it had metastized (sp?) but there is no evidence of it spreading elsewhere at this point. So I guess that makes her phase II/III.
Drs estimate an 80-90% chance of re-occurance, and want her to go on a 1 year course of Alpha Interferon. There are no other known tumors, and the recent tumor was completely operable (upper thigh)
So my question is, do any of you know of any promissing therapies, including meds in phase II or III that would be effective and tollerable for maintenance or long term therapy? Possibly in combinational therapy. VICL has two meds with Melanoma indications and I love the idea of turning the immune system loose on the cancer, but both of those are for injection into tumors as far as I can read, and thus would not work well in a post-op application. The LGND lasar therapy is also a actions against existing tumors.
Any info on potential meds, adjunct therapy (nutritional, immune system boosts, etc.) would be most gratefully appreciated.
I know a lot of the contributors and lurkers on this thread have a good background in this area, and are probably diversified into other biotechs as well, and/or are researching others.
If you currently lurk but are not SI members, please e-mail me at
sdavis@midwest.net (Southern Illinois) Prayers for her would also be sincerely appreciated.
Profound thanks in advance for any help. Scott |
