“It” is not chemo, surgery or radiation, but there’s a new treatment called Opdivo, that has shown some promise for small cell lung cancer sufferers.
A year ago this spring, you might have read about it in Time magazine, so FLASS thought you’d like to know some facts behind the hype.
The Pocket Watch Guide to Opdivo
Just as you might take a pocket watch apart to see the inner workings of its mechanisms, let’s look at some of the gear that drives this new style of cancer drug.
1. March 5, 2015 Opdivo was approved. It uses the body’s own immune system to attack lung tumors that are difficult to treat in with other methods.
2. Opdivo (nivolumab), according to its maker, Bristol-Myers Squibb, “works the same way that releasing a parking brake frees a car to move.”
Under usual circumstances, the immune system (the “car”) is automatically stopped from seeing tumors are harmful.
After all, they are the body’s own cells–they just have abnormal growth.
If the immune system did not have such brakes, it might eat you up with over-protective natural weapons. Dr. James Allison, chair of immunology at MD Anderson Cancer Center put it this way, “Without such checks, the immune system will destroy you.”
3. Dr. Allison discovered the first such a brake that protected cancer cells from the immune system. Time magazine stated, “Opdivo, (nivolumab) releases this check on the immune system’s normally voracious appetite for anything it doesn’t recognize.” Now it can see the tumors as enemies to the patient’s health.
4. Thus, with Opdivo in his or her system, the body’s own defenses can target tumor cells.
5. In an FDA news release, scientific Opdivo studies demonstrated that 15% of the treated patients actually had shrinkage or disappearance of tumors.
Caution: Seeking and Destroying Tumors
We want patients to understand that Opdivo is Not the fabled cure for cancer in the legends.
In surgery, chemotherapy or radiation, the treatments interrupt sp
ecific signals for tumor survival.
Opdivo does not do this; it just allows the immune system to recognize the cancer. “This drug doesn’t treat cancer; it doesn’t kill cancer cells so you can’t inject it and expect cancer to melt away immediately because it won’t,” says Allison.
The “magic” happens when Opdivo is combined with tumor-targeted drugs. Then it lowers the risk of recurrent cancers by training the T cells to see the tumors in the way they see viruses and bacteria. This drug zeroes in on the environment in which the cancer cells are trying to live and grow.
Another company, Merck Research Laboratories has produced a similar drug know as Keytruda. According to USA Today, and Roger Perlmutter, president of Merck, “In addition to melanoma and lung cancer, this brake-release approach has been shown effective in early trials against bladder, kidney, head and neck cancers, and some blood cancers.”
We Set our Pocket Watches On Hope for Lung Cancer Patients!
As FLASS has said previously, only by research and clinical trials can we gain hope in the battle against lethal lung cancer. Every discovery ticks off longer lives and higher qualities of life for our patients.
We pledge constantly to keep our blog readers aware of progress in the battle and we urge scientists to keep on ticking as time brings us closer and closer to winning our battle with lung cancer. Thankfully, some new discoveries like the immunotherapy drugs for lung cancer patients, chime with hope every hour.
A Special FLASS Note About Research
Florida Lung, Asthma and Sleep Specialists release the information on Opdivo and other therapies as research information, and 
as encouraging news on the home front of war on cancer.
As we report new research and lung cancer trials, FLASS warns readers never to consider any information in this blog or from any other source on the Internet to be diagnostic or in any way practical medical advice.
If you have respiratory symptoms, confide in your health care providers. Ask them questions and be an active partner in your personal health care decisions and treatment plans.
As always, the specialists among the doctors and staff at FLASS are warm and welcoming of referrals from colleagues and primary care physicians.