Fight off cancer with Keytruda (Photo : Reuters)
Keytruda, a drug developed by Merck is quite expensive. Most would have to spend around $12,500 a month for it. However, it has been studied and proven to be quite effective in warding off three cancers. Right now, Keytruda is considered to be one of the hottest cancer immunotherapy drugs.
According to Archy News, there was one study that proved on how potent Keytruda was in treating those with mesothelioma, melanoma and lung cancer. This was presented just recently at the American Association for Cancer Research conference that was held in Philadelphia.
Melanoma is considered to be the most dangerous cancer of the skin. Each year, almost 10,000 Americans die from melanoma and almost 73,000 of the American population gets this skin cancer annually. Keytruda qualifies as a second-line treatment to treating melanoma patients.
According to the the NY Times, Merck has a head to head comparison against its competitor - Yervoy, also a drug that has been approved to treat melanoma. The patients who were on Keytruda had better results than the patients who were on Yervoy.
Quite a number of Americans get infected with lung cancer, the number of non-smokers who become lung cancer patients are also rising. Keytruda has been approved to treat early stages of lung cancer. It was tried in an early-stage lung cancer study.
Majority of the patients who were on Keytruda had good results since their cancer did not worsen for four onths. Almost 20 percent of the patients who participated in the study had good result for six months - their tumor did not worsen.
Mesothelioma is a type of cancer that develops in the lungs. People who are exposed to asbestos are the ones who are prone to having this. There are about 3,000 people in America who get infected with mesothelioma every year. This cancer may be rare and quite challenging to treat.
In a study of 25 patients who were on Keytruda, 28 percent of the respondents had their tumors shrink and 48 percent had their tumors stopped growing. Also, the cancer patients claimed that the side effects of Keytruda were more tolerable than the side effects they experience when they were on chemotherapy.
