1st Arizona patient gets new immunotherapy for aggressive skin cancer

A new treatment for one of the most aggressive forms of skin cancer has successfully treated a patient in Arizona.

It’s a new type of immunotherapy called tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL).

Melanoma is an aggressive cancer associated with melanin, the pigment that helps protect the body from excessive ultraviolet light, given off by the sun and tanning beds. It starts on the skin, but can spread to other parts of the body.

Dr. Justin Moser is with the HonorHealth Research Institute in Scottsdale. He said TIL therapy was approved in February and just recently helped a Phoenix resident.

“How it works is, we actually cut out part of the tumor and then remove the immune cells from within the tumor, with the thought that if immune cells are inside the tumor, they’re trying to fight the cancer, they’re just losing the battle because of numbers,” Moser said.

Doctors then grow those cells from a couple hundred to a couple billion and infuse them back into the patient. It’s a one-time treatment that’s produced responses in about a third of patients. About half of those responses last for years.

Moser said the Phoenix patient took to treatment very well.

“Excitingly, within a couple days of treatment, some of the lesions she could feel on her skin started to shrink and were completely gone within a week,” he said. “Her outlook is great. We’re really hoping she continues to respond and her cancer continues to go away and hopefully doesn’t come back.”