Jimmy Carter says he no longer needs cancer drug treatment

ATLANTA – Jimmy Carter announced Sunday that he no longer needs treatment for cancer, less than seven months after revealing he had been diagnosed with melanoma that spread to his brain.

Carter, 91, shared the news at one of his regular Sunday School classes at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Georgia.

Carter always starts his lessons with a brief update on his recent activities. This week, Carter told the class, he received an MRI lasting more than two hours.

“And then the doctors determined that I didn’t need any more treatment,” Carter said in a video posted by WXIA-TV. “So I’m not going to have any more treatment.”

He smiled as the audience applauded.

Carter’s spokeswoman Deanna Congileo said in an email that his doctors will continue to perform scans to ensure cancer cells have not returned, and Carter will “resume treatment if necessary.”

Carter’s treatment plan for the aggressive form of cancer included a round of targeted radiation at several tumors on his brain and doses of an immune-boosting drug every three weeks from August through February. The drug, Keytruda, was approved not long before Carter’s announcement and helps his body seek out and destroy cancer cells.

Carter has remained active throughout his treatment, including participating in a building project with Habitat for Humanity. He also continued to work with the Carter Center, the human rights organization he founded after leaving the White House, contrary to his initial plans to step back during treatment.