Her hand may look a little bruised, but for 78-year-old Diana Coy, it's a welcome sight, considering what it once looked like.
"I looked down and it looked like this, and the next day when I woke up, they were just big," Coy said of her hands.
It began as a mole on her arm, which turned out to be melanoma and was removed. Months later, it came back, growing at an alarming rate.
"The worry of course was that it might eventually spread to her vital organs, including her lungs and liver," explained Dr. Amita Patnaik, medical oncologist and associate director of clinical research at South Texas Accelerated Research Therapeutics, or START.
Coy joined a clinical trial at START. Every three weeks, she receives an infusion of a drug called keytruda, which stimulates the patient's own immune system to fight the cancer.
"Miracle is after about the third treatment I noticed they just started to dry up and they fell off, and it was just amazing," explained Coy.
Photos taken of Coy's hand every couple weeks show significant progress.
"I think it's incredibly unique and representative of a completely different era that's evolving now in cancer medicine whereby we're beginning to use the immune system in fighting cancer," Patnaik explained.
It's a development that's giving the avid reader her life back.
Because of the results, the FDA has now approved keytruda to be standard-of-care for patients with advanced melanoma.
Patnaik said there are 76,000 cases of melanoma expected this year.
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