OK, this is pretty awesome. Not the trial drug I am on but it works on the same principal. Tecentriq (aka atezolizumab, aka MPDL3280A) has been officially approved by the FDA as a treatment for Bladder Cancer!
I guess the FDA made their decision faster than expected. This drug targets the same PD-L1 pathway that my trial drug does. This is great news and I hope that my drug also gets approval in the future. But if things don't go as planned I at least now have an approved back up plan. This seriously changes things, for me and others in my situation. Before this approval I really did not have another reliable treatment available to me.
The drug will still only be available to those who have tried platinum based therapy (poisonous cisplatin and others) and not had a good response. I really hope that these immunotherapy drugs eventually replace the nasty chemotherapy drugs as the first line response and not the second line of treatment. It still boggles my mind how fit and strong I was going into dose dense MVAC chemotherapy and how it ruined me in just 12 weeks. I have been on my trial drug for nearly a year and a half and have a fraction of the chemotherapy side effects with a better response. Let's hope this research helps other teams find new ways to combat cancer.
