Updated September 28th, 2018

The Immunotherapy Revolution For Cancer — Fewer People Getting Sick From Complications, According to Promising New Data

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Immunotherapy has been a total game-changer when it comes to treating several cancers. But there have been incidents of serious side effects, and even death. A new study from Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center aimed to put numbers on how often people are actually dying from the most commonly used type of immunotherapy. What they found is really promising.

The risk of fatalities from immune checkpoint inhibitor toxicities is “within or well below” fatality rates of more common cancer treatments – like surgeries and chemotherapy. When lives are lost during these immunotherapy treatments, it usually happens between 15 and 40 days after starting treatment.

The researchers reviewed records from seven academic centers and found there was a 0.6% fatality rate. Senior author of the new report and clinical director of Vanderbilt’s melanoma program, Dr. Douglas Johnson, says that when it comes to this type of immunotherapy, it’s important to note that the side effects can be really severe, but the benefits outweigh the risks.

“We wanted to look and see how the rate of deaths from immune checkpoint inhibitors compared with other cancer treatments … what we found was that, looking across different studies, other cancer therapies including chemotherapies and targeted therapies had death rates that were quite comparable to this, or even potentially higher in many cases.”

With combination chemotherapy the death rate is about 1%, according to Dr. Johnson. And high-risk oncology surgeries have a death rate ranging from 1-10%, according to the new report.

Dr. Johnson recommends that patients who are undergoing immunotherapy be aware of side effects like shortness of breath, diarrhea and extreme fatigue … these symptoms could hint that something is going wrong with treatment. In these cases, always call your doctor.

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