Kelly Preston has died at 57 after a two-year battle with breast cancer. The actress, who appeared in “Jerry McGuire” and opposite her husband in 2018s “Gotti”, kept her cancer battle private, according to a family statement.
“It is with a very heavy heart that I inform you that my beautiful wife Kelly has lost her two-year battle with breast cancer,” Travolta, 66, wrote on Sunday night in an emotional post on Instagram.
Read More“Two Year Battle With Breast Cancer”
Travolta, 66, went on to share that “my family and I will forever be grateful to her doctors and nurses at MD Anderson Cancer Center, all the medical centers that have helped, as well as her many friends and loved ones who have been by her side.”
“Kelly's love and life will always be remembered,” Travolta wrote, stating he planned to take “some time to be there for my children who have lost their mother … But please know that I will feel your outpouring of love in the weeks and months ahead as we heal.”
The couple had three children, a daughter Ella, 20, and sons Benjamin, 9, and Jett, who died at age 16 in January 2009 after having a seizure while the family was on vacation in the Bahamas.
Dr. Heather McArthur explains how immunotherapy is being studied as a treatment for certain types of breast cancer.
Ella Travolta paid tribute to her mother on Instagram: “I have never met anyone as courageous, strong, beautiful and loving as you,” she wrote. “You have a glow and a light that never ceases to shine and that makes anyone around you feel instantly happy.”
“Thank you for being there for me no matter what,” Ella Travolta wrote. “Thank you for your love. Thank you for your help and thank you for making this world a better place. You have made life so beautiful and I know you will continue to do so always. I love you so much mama.”
Preston starred in films such as the 1986 comedy “SpaceCamp,” “Twins” (1988), as Tom Cruise’s fiancée Avery Bishop in “Jerry Maguire” (1996) and alongside Kevin Costner in the 1999 sports drama “For Love of the Game.” In her final film role, she played Victoria Gotti, opposite Travolta in the 2018 film, “Gotti.”
Immunotherapy And Breast Cancer
Immunotherapy, or the concept of rallying the body's own immune system to recognize and attack cancer, has really changed the game when it comes to treating several cancers, such as melanoma and lung cancer. However, when it comes to treating breast cancer with this type of therapy there is still a lot of research to do.
RELATED: Hopeful News for Breast Cancer: A New Drug Combination to Extend Survival Time
In a previous interview with SurvivorNet, MD Anderson Cancer Center's Dr. Jim Allison, who won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Medicine, explained that the fact that immunotherapy is so effective when treating some cancers, and not effective when treating others, is one of the big questions researchers are working on answering now.
Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Jim Allison, chair of the Department of Immunology, MD Anderson Cancer Center, explains what's next for the immunotherapy revolution.
"[Immunotherapy] works in many different kinds of cancers," Dr. Allison said. "Some it doesn't work in yet. That's a big challenge that we're beginning to work on. But there's never been a class of drugs that's worked with quite this at this level and then also offered the possibility for combinations."
"I think that the most powerful combinations coming up are based on combining immune blockers or enhancers, but also drugs that can directly kill tumor cells to really have a double whammy," he added.
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.