ACTG Blog

My 87-year-old mother had a black mole on her forehead for a long time. One day, I noticed that the black mole had became larger, so I took her to the Yulin branch of National Taiwan University Hospital. The diagnosis was squamous- cell carcinoma II, so we quickly began treatment.

The cancer was quite difficult to treat, and my mother underwent three surgeries in three years, after which the skin ulceration was so serious that bones in the left area of her forehead, ear, as well as her parotid gland, could be clearly seen. After surgically removing the tumor with a size of ≥3 cm, left parotid lymph node metastases developed. During the course of auxiliary radiotherapy, the cancer recurred at the left periauricular area, which needed surgery to totally remove the parotid gland and sentinel lymph node. In the third surgery, her facial nerve was damaged. To prevent tumor recurrence, we used targeted therapy every two weeks, but the disease still worsened. Therefore, we started course of chemotherapy but this caused my mother's weight to keep reducing. Considering my mother was too old to endure continual surgeries for the case of recurrence, after discussion with Dr. Ma, we decided to use an immune checkpoint inhibitor. Luckily, her tumor shrank a lot without skin secretion and she began returning to her normal weight. The results from the half yearly MRI scans have been normal, and we have also undertaken ACTOnco®+ test to search for more treatment options in case of recurrence. The ACTOnco®+ test confirmed that my mother's cancer cells would have a high response rate to immunotherapy.

Before and after treatment, ACTOnco®+ provides treatment evaluation benefits for patients and enable patients and their family to fight cancer more efficiently and effectively.