Rusty’s Story

Rusty Cline’s Story

Privcap Proudly Supports: Melanoma Research Alliance

Two years ago, Rusty Cline, an IT executive from Virginia, had advanced-stage melanoma and was running out of time.

Rusty Cline: When I first was diagnosed my chances of survival were about five percent.  I actually was told there was no hope.  Less than 20 percent patients make it five years with stage four which I was diagnosed with.

I’d exhausted all conventional treatment.  There was really nothing left for me to do except a trial and fortunately this trial was available and I qualified.

The disease had taken a toll on Rusty’s body.

Cline: In 2012 my disease had progressed to the point where I could no longer work. There were numerous tumors sticking out of my body.  The prognosis was not good at all.

Fortunately, Rusty learned that he qualified for a trial that was backed by the Melanoma Research Alliance

Cline: This actually is the third trial that I’ve been on in the past seven and half years and it was sheer luck.  A friend of a friend of a work associate knew of a trial at Sloan Kettering that I might qualify for and got me an appointment to see Dr. Wolchok and I did qualify.

After a string of heartbreaking failures, Rusty’s health began to improve.

Cline: I’d been on a rollercoaster for seven and a half years, had multiple treatments, other clinical trials, radiation, surgeries.  I was not hopeful.  I was not as hopeful as I should have been for this trial.  I was doing it to appease my family, my friends.  However, on the very first day, before I got to the elevator while leaving the infusion room at Sloan Kettering, I could feel it working.  I understand how crazy that sounds and I know our minds play tricks on us, but I could feel the tumors shrinking.  And six weeks later on my first scans, the scans proved that I was right. And every six weeks since then the scans have been shrinking and now it’s 94.6 percent reduced and continues.

Rusty has become a big fan of the MRA’s approach to finding a cure for melanoma

Cline: They’ve used a strategy that seems to be working and I think will revolutionize all of cancer research and perhaps all medical research.  Instead of taking a shotgun approach where you take a large amount of money and put it out there and say cure cancer, they are more pinpointed and they look for promising drugs, promising trials and they put their money behind something that seems to be working already.