PLAINS, Ga. — Former President Jimmy Carter said Sunday his cancer is gone.
Carter, 91, made the announcement near the beginning of the Sunday School class he was teaching at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, a close friend and fellow church member said.
“He said he got a scan this week and the cancer was gone,” Jill Stuckey said by phone from Maranatha, where Carter was still in the midst of teaching to about 350 people, many of them visitors. “The church, everybody here, just erupted in applause.”
Sunday evening Carter attended the town's annual Christmas concert at the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site, which is the old Plains High School.
We spoke with Johnnie Raven Jr., 89, as he left the concert. Raven has known Carter since they were both young boys.
"That was a blessing when I heard him," Raven said.
Carter said in August that doctors had found four small melanoma lesions on his brain. The discovery followed the removal of a lesion on his liver that took about ten percent of the organ. He said he would receive four drug treatments, along with radiation therapy, and that he would cut back significantly on his schedule.
Channel 2 Action News received the following statement from Press Secretary for Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, Deanna Congileo:
"My most recent MRI brain scan did not reveal any signs of the original cancer spots nor any new ones. I will continue to receive regular 3-week immunotherapy treatments of pembrolizumab."
At a Habitat for Humanity build in Memphis last month, Carter said he had completed his round of four treatments and was feeling good.
A week later, the Carter Center released what it termed a "good news" statement, in which it said his doctors at Emory University's Winship Cancer Institute had told their famous patient that recent tests had shown no evidence of new malignancy and that he was "responding well to treatment."
WSBTV
