“A clinical trial at New England Cancer Specialists has given me eight extra years…and counting.”

Roy Jenkins has long been a skilled amateur boatbuilder, with 15 wooden boats to his credit. But when he was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer, and his doctor gave him less than two years to live, Roy turned his attention to getting his affairs in order.

Standard chemotherapy only slowed the progress of his disease. It did not reduce the size of his tumor, or stop the progression of his cancer. So when Dr. David Benton told Roy about a clinical trial he could participate in at our Topsham office, Roy figured, “What do I have to lose?”

His tumor stopped growing, and began to shrink. There has been no evidence of progressive disease, and no nausea, which was a side effect of his previous treatment.

Seven years later, the immunotherapy drug—now FDA-approved—has controlled Roy’s lung cancer into remission, and he is building his own 27-foot wooden cruising boat.

Immunotherapy is just one of the innovative new treatments we’re testing—often with remarkable success—at our three offices in Maine. Unlike standard chemotherapy, immunotherapy uses a person’s immune system to fight cancer. Some immunotherapies boost the body’s immune system in a very general way, while others help train the immune system to attack cancer cells specifically.