Immunotherapy and terrible side effects

[Straightjacketsandroses]

Does anyone have any experience?

My dad is having treatment for secondaries (melanoma) and the therapy has shrunk the tumour by 50% but he has spent the last three weeks in hospital unable to keep food down, and doctors are sort of at a loss as to why it seems. He isn’t on treatment at the moment and has lost a lot of weight, so obviously we are all worried

Immunotherapy works by switching on your immune system but it does mean that as a side effect you can get inflammation anywhere in the body.

Is he in a hospital being treated by doctors that understand immunotherapy side effects?

Gastritis is a common side effect, I'm very surprised the doctors are baffled. DH had to discontinue treatment due to this. Basically the body mounts an immune response to its own cells, often in the GI tract.
Edited for typos.

Colitis is a known side effect of immunotherapy, especially the ones used in melanoma. Do they not think it’s related to the immunotherapy as you say he’s not on treatment at the moment. The immunotherapy antibodies have quite a long half life I think so probably stay in your system for a while after stopping taking them. And then the immune effects in the gut could take a bit longer to turn off. Can you get a second opinion? Are the doctors used to giving immunotherapy?

Was he taking Pembrolizumab (Keytruda)? As pp says, immunotherapies have around a two week half life, so these could be related side effects if his last dose was in the last month. Clinicians should be able to manage the side effects with steroids, they will have seen this before.

Sorry your dad is so poorly.

Sorry to hear your Dad is unwell. I’m in the same situation with my Dad but he’s deciding what to do? He’s elderly and doesn't want the Immunotherapy to disrupt his whole system 🥲

My dad has mesothelioma and had four rounds of immunotherapy in Dec/jan last year before the colitis hospitalised him. It went off quickly with intravenous steroids and then a course of prednisone but they’ve said he can’t have any more immunotherapy because it will come back.
He was on the loo around 20 times a day and it was awful. He’s been much better since it stopped.

He has been offered chemo but he’s nearly 80 and has decided to enjoy himself while he feels well rather than having treatment which will give him around 6 more months but he’ll feel rotten for 6 months as well.

im sorry to hear about all your dads, it’s a hard time.