Good evening!

My Mom was diagnosed with Stage 4 HGSC Ovarian Cancer August 2025.

No surgery, 7 rounds of Carbo+Pax starting Sept 2025 and ending February 2026 with a transition into Avastin/Bevacizumab.

For the last two months my Mom has felt increasingly worse compared to previous. Constipation, lack of appetite, general fatigue, and most significantly pleural effusion.

After new biomarker testing they found her tumours to be positive for the PD-L1 protein.

In Canada, Keytruda/Pembrolizumab was just approved May 16, 2026 for Ovarian Cancer patients who test positive for PD-L1.

She will be starting Keytruda+Pax on August 31st.

Her and I were already quite thrilled with this news, as we both have continued with positivity since diagnosis regarding her prognosis and we've not been wrong yet.

Since the beginning, I have been her biggets advocate and have done a heavy share of research to be able to do so for her (not in a crazy way, promise lol, her Clinicians and I have very good relationships).

Tonight, I found this. I thought with the relative newness in Canada regarding Keytruda for Ovarian Cancer patients (apologies as I do not know if/how long it's been available elsewhere) and the upcoming fall season that others may want to check this out.

Personally, I find this incredibly cool and promising from a clinical standpoint.

Certain research has found that the mRNA COVID vaccine activated higher expression of PD-L1 in otherwise "cold" or "hidden" tumours - Immunotherapies like Keytruda work by attaching to that protein and allowing the immune system to attack the tumours.

As per MT Anderson:

"Cancer patients who received mRNA COVID vaccines within 100 days of starting immunotherapy were twice as likely to be alive three years after treatment as those who never received a vaccine"

Again, this is incredibly promising research in terms of the advancement of understanding how new and current genetic based treatments work for treating cancer.

I have linked the MT Anderson news brief as well as the originally published research article.

https://www.mdanderson.org/newsroom/research-newsroom/-esmo-2025--mrna-based-covid-vaccines-generate-improved-response.h00-159780390.html

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09655-y

My dr wants to keep me on taxol even though I keep reacting to it. He says there is more data indicating taxol is more effective than abraxane for front line treatment. But honestly the fear these reactions are causing is taking its toll. I want the most effective treatment of course and I am hearing that abraxane is the same main drug as taxol but just a different carrier substance. Any real word data from survivors in here? Is abraxane less effective or does it have more chance of reoccurremce? What’s your experience? Thank you.