Expert: Claes-Gustaf Nordquist, M.D. - 2/16/2009

Question
My 57 year old brother was diagnosed with melanoma 18 months ago. He had the mole from his back removed and was clinically cancer free. He took inferon for 9 months as a precaution but the cancer spread to his lungs anyway. He started a clinical trail on interluken 21 in Montreal Canada in Jan.. After 5 days of treatments he had 3 seizures within 1 hour and he almost died. He had an MRI the day before starting the clinical trail and there were no brain tumors. After the seizures he had another MRI and a 2.5 cm tumor was found. 1 week later 4 more brain tumors were found. He has undergone radiation last week, this week he was told that it is not working as his tumors are growing, the largest is 4cm. He has now started chemo again 2 days ago, but has been told it only has a 2% chance of working....he is now sitting at home waiting 3 weeks for his next appointment. This is a man that was snowboarding at Christmas.....we still cannot believe how fast the cancer is spreading. At this point we will send him anywhere in the world, we cannot have him sit back for 3 weeks, he may not have 3 weeks. The doctors in Canada have told him there is nothing else they can do. Can you suggest anything?

Answer
Malignant melanomas are usually not very sensitive to radiation therapy or chemotherapy. Some interesting and promising experiments in immunotherapy are going on at the US National Cancer Institute but they are still very experimental.
I'm sorry I have nothing better to tell you!