Jerry Jones reveals scary health diagnosis

Jerry Jones reveals scary health diagnosis originally appeared on The Sporting News

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones had a serious health crisis nearly 20 years ago. He was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer back in 2010 and had battled the disease for almost a decade. 

According to the Dallas Morning News, he had stage 4 melanoma and an experimental trial drug saved his life.

“I was saved by a fabulous treatment and great doctors and a real miracle [drug] called PD-1 [therapy],” the 82-year-old Jones said. “I went into trials for that PD-1, and it has been one of the great medicines. “I now have no tumors.”

Normally, with stage 4 cancer, that signifies that a cancer patient may be near death.

Jones says he found out he had cancer in June 2010 and started to receive treatment right away. During that time, he had four surgeries. Two lung surgeries and two lymph node surgeries. He did not comment on when he began the experimental trial and PD-1.

The American Cancer Society says that the normal survival rate of stage 4 melanoma cancer is 35% but the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center study suggests that new treatments can increase chances of survival up to 50%.

The experimental treatment Jones went through is called PD-1 is Programmed Cell Death Protein 1. PD-1 immunotherapy helps the immune system fight cancer cells by blocking PD-1, thus enabling T cells to recognize better and destroy cancer cells.

All this news was revealed in the new Netflix documentary about the Cowboys called  America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys, in which in one of the episodes, Jones mentions he battled cancer, which prompted the Dallas media to ask him about it.

The eight-part documentary will be out August 19th on Netflix and it chronicles his ownership of the team and the ups and downs the team has faced over the years including his feud with former Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson.