[meowfly]

A family member of mine is going through keynote 522, which is a clinical trial that combines 3 chemos and an immunotherapy prior to surgery.

The five year survival rate for stage 3 triple negative breast cancer is normally about ~60% but the clinical trials show with immunotherapy it exceeds 80%. So the survival rates you see online aren't capturing the progress we are making with these drugs. Hashimotos seems worth the risk.

An interesting aside is that the patients in the clinical trials who had adverse reactions to immunotherapy and came off the medication had higher survival rates than patients who stayed on it. The hypothesis is that stimulating an immune system overreaction also means it was also highly effective against the cancer.

[adamredwoods]

Interesting theory, but not in my experience. My wife died of MBC and she had lots of reactions. Anecdotally, the pembro + chemo may have given her an extra year, she did well on it.