Melanoma/Skin Cancer Health Center

Melanoma Patient Tumor Free in T-Cell Clone Study

Melanoma Treatment 'Renaissance' continued...

"Among investigators, we agree almost certainly that immune therapy is going to work when we combine different agents," says Butler, soon to become an assistant professor at the University of Toronto.

Yee says that although adoptive immunotherapy studies began with melanoma patients, the treatment should work for other types of cancer.

"We are starting to look at ovarian cancer and sarcoma," Yee says.

While adoptive immunotherapy remains on the drawing board, Yee and Butler encourage patients to enroll in clinical trials.

"There are more options for melanoma now than ever before," Yee says. "But if patients volunteer for reasonable clinical trials, we think patients can move science forward faster. We are grateful to the patients who are brave enough to explore this new frontier. This is almost like a renaissance period for immunotherapy."

Yee's study appears in the March 5 early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Butler's study appeared in the April 27, 2011, issue of Science Translational Medicine.