Ex-President Jimmy Carter says scans show no signs of cancer

JUBA, South Sudan – Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said a scan of his torso conducted last week found no signs of melanoma, the cancer that doctors discovered last summer in his liver and brain, but he will continue treatment Feb. 9.

A previous brain scan found four cancerous lesions were gone with no new evidence of cancer cells, Carter said in December.

“I haven’t had more brain scans, but I have had a scan of my chest and abdomen,” he told the Associated Press on a call to South Sudan from London. “These last scans I had last week didn’t show any sign of recurrence of the cancer.”

Carter, 91, said the results look “promising,” but added his doctors remain “very cautious.”

“They could be so minute, the cancer points in your body, that sometimes the scans don’t detect the cancer that’s there. So I’m still continuing my treatment … ” Carter said. The former president said he has been receiving doses of the anti-melanoma drug Keytruda.

Carter is in London to discuss the Guinea worm disease, which his foundation has worked since 1986 to eradicate.

Carter said Tuesday that Guinea worm could be eradicated in a year or two if recent progress continues. There were only 22 cases globally last year, down from 126 in 2014 and an estimated 3.5 million when the Carter Center began its work.

“I have a good chance I think of outlasting the last Guinea worm,” Carter said. “That’s my ultimate goal.”