The only thing that prevented his severe melanoma skin cancer was the novel treatment, which enlists the body’s own immune system to combat the illness.
Unfortunately, most cancer patients do not now find any benefit from immunotherapy.
Many encounter severe adverse effects, such as excruciating inflammation of the skin, lungs, or colon, or they relapse.
So now a new multimillion-pound research effort aims to determine why at least half of all patients fail to respond to immunotherapy or suffer from those terrible side effects.
Alex, who is now 42, was first given a melanoma diagnosis in 2012.
Despite receiving surgical treatment, the disease had progressed to his lymph nodes after three years.
After a series of post-surgery radiotherapy treatments and further surgeries to remove the tumors, Alex received immunotherapy.
“I finished radiotherapy and my scans were clear, however under two years later my cancer returned,” he stated.
“Immunotherapy was recommended to me, and it literally saved my life.
“Without it, my wife and my two children, who were four and seven years old at the time, would have lost me in 2019.”
“It was a life-changing treatment for me and I’m now in my eighth year of complete remission and able to lead a normal and active life.”
