What Was the First Effective Immunotherapy? (0:50)
The first effective immunotherapy was high dose interleukin 2 (IL2), used to treat patients with metastatic melanoma and metastatic renal cancer. In this video, Steven Rosenberg, MD, talks discusses the progression of IL2.
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Well, the first effective immunotherapy was one that we described first in 1985, which was high dose Interleukin 2. It was the treatment of patients with metastatic melanoma and metastatic renal cell cancer. Response rates in those two tumors were about 15%, but about a third of those, a third to a half, would be complete regressions, and when you have a complete regression, those patients virtually never recur.
And so for that reason, it's the durable complete regressions that led to the approval by the FDA of the use of high dose IL-2 for patients with metastatic kidney cancer in 1992, and metastatic melanoma in 1998, and these are now widely, this Interleukin 2 is now widely available throughout the United States.
Dr. Rosenberg pioneered the development of effective immunotherapies for patients with advanced cancers. His studies have resulted in the regression of metastatic cancer in patients with melanoma, sarcomas and lymphomas.
