For a few months Louine King, 88, of Farmington had a lingering cough so she visited her primary care physician for a check-up.

“Besides my cough, I felt really good,” recalls King.

But a chest X-ray revealed a 7 cm tumor, the size of a tennis ball, was growing in her upper left lung. Doctors confirmed it was indeed lung cancer. The diagnosis arrived 45 years after she quit smoking.

Doctors prepared her that she may just have 3 to 5 months to live without aggressive treatment. She then started to be cared for by a hospice nurse and prepared for the possible end of her life.

“I started to give away my belongings and even my beloved carving knives I use to create little wooden figurines and creatures,” said King.

But then her new oncologist Dr. Susan Tannenbaum offered her a glimmer of hope with the immunotherapy Keytruda which in the right setting can be used as a first line of therapy over chemotherapy.

“Once I heard this new immunotherapy drug may help me survive I said let’s try it,” said King.

Immediately after her first Keytruda infusion, King’s persistent cough just stopped. The drug was shrinking her tumor. It works by jumpstarting a patient’s immune system to allow it to more easily recognize and subsequently destroy cancer cells that were once hiding.

Tannenbaum says, “After Mrs. King received the immunotherapy it was like a light switch was turned on. It was an amazing medical response.”

“I then was able to say goodbye to my hospice nurse,” exclaims King. “It is now one year later. My family and friends keep telling me I am going to live to be 100.”

Thanks to UConn Health’s care King is now carving out a future without life-threatening, advanced lung cancer.

“I am feeling wonderful,” said King who is back with her carving knives doing what she loves. “I love to carve wood, and going to church is the most important thing in my life.”

She has received 15 infusions of Keytruda so far, one every three weeks. The residual of her tumor is now just a small mark on her lung the size of a quarter.

According to Tannenbaum, in the past for patients like King with advanced Stage IV non-small cell lung cancer, virtually all patients would succumb to the disease. But now Keytruda works for 15-20 percent of patients with advanced lung cancer, especially when cells in the cancer have surface proteins called PD-L1. This immunotherapy treatment is often tolerated well even in older patients as it has far fewer side effects than chemotherapy.  However, it is a mixed blessing says Tannenbaum as it still is not effective in 80 percent of patients with advanced stage lung cancer.

“Every time I see Mrs. King I can’t help but smile,” said Tannenbaum.