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 Carter, 91, started treatment in August for melanoma that had
spread from his liver to his brain. A previous MRI test showed the
four spots of cancer that had developed on his brain were responding
to treatment, he said.
"When I went this week, they didn’t find any cancer at all, so I
have good news," Carter told the crowd at Maranatha Baptist Church
in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, according to a video from NBC
News.
The former Democratic president, known for his unassuming style,
offered a quick smile as people who had come for the Sunday School
class he teaches gasped and clapped.
In a brief written statement afterward, Carter confirmed his most
recent brain scan "did not reveal any signs of the original cancer
spots nor any new ones."
 He said he would continue to receive regular doses of pembrolizumab,
a new treatment that is part of a promising class of drugs that
harness the body's immune system to fight cancer. The immunotherapy
is manufactured by Merck & Co under the brand name Keytruda.
While about 30 percent of patients treated with the drug experience
significant shrinkage of their cancer, only approximately 5 percent
experience complete remission, said Dr. Marc Ernstoff, director of
the melanoma program at the Cleveland Clinic's Taussig Cancer
Institute in Ohio.
On average, the immunotherapy treatment extends a recipient's life
expectancy by a year and a half.
"But people that are in complete remission tend to live
significantly longer," said Ernstoff, who is not involved in
Carter's care. Carter, who said after his diagnosis last summer
that his fate was "in the hands of God," has defied expectations
before.
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Critics derided his 1977-1981 presidency as a failure, although he
played a key role in negotiation of the 1978 Camp David peace accord
between Israel and Egypt. He lost his 1980 re-election bid to
Republican Ronald Reagan.
But the former peanut farmer built one of the most successful
post-White House legacies, winning a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 and
remaining active into his '90s in causes such as fighting disease in
Africa and building homes for the poor.
He said in August that his cancer treatment, which has included
radiation, would require him to cut back dramatically on his public
schedule.
But Carter has continued to teach Sunday School classes and
participated in at least one Habitat for Humanity home-building
event this autumn. In October, he announced he was also working with
the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s heirs to help mediate their
dispute over whether to sell their father's 1964 Nobel Peace Prize
medal and the Bible he carried during the civil rights movement.
(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, N.C.; Editing by
Mary Milliken, Peter Cooney and Jonathan Oatis)
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