ATLANTA (AP) – Jimmy Carter no longer needs treatment for the cancer diagnosis he revealed in August, a spokeswoman for the former president said on Sunday.
Carter, 91, apparently shared the news at one of his regular Sunday School classes at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Georgia.
Carter announced in August that he had been diagnosed with melanoma that had spread to his brain and laid out a treatment plan, including a round of targeted radiation at the brain tumors and doses of an immune-boosting drug every three weeks. Keytruda, the drug, was approved not long before Carter’s announcement and helps his body seek out and destroy cancer cells.
Carter’s spokeswoman Deanna Congileo said in an email that Carter received doses of the drug from August through February. She said his doctors will continue to perform scans to ensure cancer cells have not returned, and Carter will “resume treatment if necessary.”
A spokesman for Emory University’s Winship Cancer Institute, where Carter has been treated, declined to comment on Sunday, citing patient privacy.