DALLAS — Dallas Cowboys owner is crediting an experimental drug for saving his life after he was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma more than a decade ago.
Jones told The Dallas Morning News that he had fought the disease for 10 years but that PD-1 saved him.
“I was saved by a fabulous treatment and great doctors and a real miracle [drug] called PD-1 [therapy]. I went into trials for that PD-1 and it has been one of the great medicines.”
“I now have no tumors,” Jones said.
The topic came up after he mentioned in Netflix’s documentary “America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys” that he had undergone cancer treatments “about a dozen years ago.”
He did not specify the type of cancer in the 40+ hours of interviews over two years. When the interview that spoke about his treatment happened was also not disclosed, the Morning News reported.
Since he was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma, Jones said he had to undergo two lung surgeries and two lymph node surgeries, but started the experimental treatment towards the end of the decade, but did not specify when.
Stage 4 melanoma means that skin cancer cells have metastasized to other parts of the body. Usually, it has a five-year survival rate of 35%, according to the American Cancer Society. Stage 4 is also called distant by the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database according to the American Cancer Society.
The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Study has found that new treatments such as immunotherapy and targeted therapy bring that up to 50%.
The treatment Jones received is called Programmed Cell Death Protein 1 and is an immunotherapy that allows the immune system to attack cancer cells.
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