MK-3475 PD-1 Clinical Trial for MDS

[wall1057]

Is anyone participating in this trial? It is not chemo, but a treatment that works on the immune system. I can't really explain it, but something attaches to the cancer cells and kills them. This drug has had a great deal of success with stage 4 melanoma. My 81 one year old mother is in her 4th round. Went into remission with vidaza and then it failed. Went into remission in a clinical trial with cyterabine and then it failed after 8 months. Now she is in this Phase 1 MK-3475 trial. Her blasts went from <1% to 8% when the cyterabine failed. Her bone marrow biopsy showed that her blasts remained at 8% after 3 rounds of treatment - 6 weeks. She is transfusion dependent. Platelet count goes down as low as 2 between transfusions. She feels horrible all the time. She runs fever and has terrible night sweats. Can't eat. I asked how long it would take to see improvement if the drug was going to work and of course the doctor does not know because it has never been tried on MDS. Is anyone familiar with this MERCK drug trial? Has anyone heard anything about the side effects? I just don't know at what point you say enough!

[cch]

My mother has been on this clinical trial of MK 3475 for about a year and 3 months. I agree, she has felt horrible almost the entire time. She has gone from about 125 pounds to 86 pounds. I am ready to take her off and stop this! I feel, even though the drug is holding her disease from progressing, but at quite the price..quality of life. She is also transfusion dependent.