An Immunotherapy Success Story: Mary Elizabeth Williams Lived Through Metastatic Melanoma

Even though things like sun exposure and tanning bed use are major risk factors for melanoma, even those who avoid these things as much as possible should be aware of the signs of melanoma. Mary Elizabeth Williams says she was absolutely not the type to lay out and soak up rays — still, she was diagnosed with stage four melanoma.

“Even though I am from New Jersey, I was never one to tan,” Mary Elizabeth says. “I never went to the beach without sunscreen. I never spent a moment in a tanning salon in my life. I was pretty much your basic little goth girl. So I didn’t think too much about skin cancer.”

Mary Elizabeth thought something may be wrong when she found a scab on her scalp while taking a shower — still, she didn’t think it’d be skin cancer. After a biopsy, she was told she had melanoma, and that it was metastatic. When she was considering treatment, in 2011, the outlook for a metastatic melanoma diagnosis was only a few months. But Mary Elizabeth was advised to consider immunotherapy — or the harvesting of one’s own immune system to fight cancer. Immunotherapy was — and still is — a very experimental form of treatment. Some people have seen amazing outcomes, but many haven’t.

Mary Elizabeth was one of the fortunate ones. “I spent two years in a clinical trial, I’m now seven years cancer free,” she says.

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