Fighting Cancerous Cells
December 10, 2004
ATLANTA (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) — Each year, nearly 22,000 patients will be diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor. Doctors often use surgery and chemotherapy to destroy the tumor. Here’s how researchers are making sure those tumors don’t grow back.
Ask Valarie Hill what she thinks of medicine, and she’ll be honest. “I am sick, sick, sick, sick, sick, sick, sick, sick, sick, sick, sick of medicine,” she says, and with good reason. Her first brain tumor came in 1993. It recurred in 1995, 2002, and in 2003.
Hill’s last tumor was removed six months ago. She received chemo and an experimental treatment called Interferon-Alfa 2B recombinant. It activates the body’s immune system.
“This is another new frontier of therapy beside surgical, radiation, chemotherapy,” says Surasak Phuphanich, M.D., a neuro-oncologist at Emory University in Atlanta. “Immunotherapy is the next frontier to fight against the cancer.”
Three days a week, Hill gets a shot of the medicine. She hopes it keeps her tumor away for good.
Dr. Phuphanich says he is able to increase patients’ lives by 50 percent. “I don’t think we can win them all, but the ones that we save and can maintain quality of life — I think that they keep me in this business.”
Hill says: “I feel wonderful. I’m blessed and everything; everything is just alright now.” Even though she is sick of it, Hill knows medicine is her best shot at survival.
Right now, Emory University is the only site studying this medicine for brain tumors. Researchers there hope to enroll more patients in their study. The drug is already approved by the FDA for the treatment of some leukemias, melanoma, and chronic hepatitis.
If you would like more information, please contact:
Janet Christenbury
Health Sciences Communications
Emory University
1440 Clifton Road, Suite 105
Atlanta, GA 30322
(404) 727-8599
[email protected]
