Posted by Michael Wonder on 19 Jul 2016
I thought melanoma would kill me. Here's why it didn't
19 July 2016 - Several months ago, my wife, Francoise, and I attended something novel for melanoma patients: a survivors' dinner. People said they wanted to make it an annual gathering. Planning anything that far in advance had been pointless for me. Two years ago, I was about to accept hospice care.
When I was diagnosed in 1996, very early surgery was the only reliably successful treatment. A more advanced case was essentially a death sentence. Over the past five years, a series of revolutionary drugs have given me and many other people a surprisingly hopeful prospect. Nevertheless, the drugs' development process has often been excruciating for participants in clinical trials, and the drugs' remarkably high costs limit their value.
