FOR MORE THAN a century, pathologists have identified cancer by looking at slides containing tissue stained with dyes to make the malignant cells more visible. Spotting aberrant cells among healthy ones is similar in spirit to recognizing familiar faces or objects in pictures. “Our brains are very good at recognizing patterns in images,” says physician and
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ONCE A MONTH, 40-year-old Kristen Kilmer drives nearly 400 miles from her home in Spearfish, South Dakota, to the Avera Cancer Institute in Sioux Falls. On some mornings, she leaves as early as 1:30 a.m. after kissing her sleeping 11-year-old daughter goodbye. Without traffic or inclement weather, it’s a six-hour haul from one side of the
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Seven years after her brain cancer diagnosis, Liz Salmi decided she wanted to know more about the makeup of the tumor that changed her life. Salmi had already undergone two surgeries to remove the grade II astrocytoma, an invasive but usually slow-growing brain tumor. After her second surgery, she was treated with Temodar (temozolomide), a chemotherapy drug, for two
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It’s been 10 years since Tom Liebert received an experimental cancer vaccine to treat his multiple myeloma, and he still wonders: Did it work? The question nags at him, but not always. After all, he’s still alive and singing with a barbershop quartet in Fairfield Glade, Tennessee. And while he knows multiple myeloma is currently
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In November 2012, when she was 52 years old, Shannon Semple was diagnosed with a disease she didn’t have. She credits getting a second opinion with saving her life. Semple, a physician assistant at a regional hospital in New Bern, North Carolina, had developed a persistent fever and high blood pressure. She spent a few
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Kent Haffer remembers when his oncologist approached him with an unusual idea. It was 2013, and Haffer, a 55-year-old computer programmer living in St. Peters, Missouri, had been receiving treatment for advanced melanoma for eight years. His oncologist proposed that Haffer be part of a clinical trial, but not one involving hundreds of people. Instead,
Children can be many things. Joyful, energetic and exasperating. Curious, playful and sad. For P.J. Lukac, who is finishing his pediatrics residency at Chicago’s Rush University Medical Center, children are also a source of inspiration and hope. “They’re a joy to work with, and theymake me laugh,” says the 30-year-oldpediatrician of the children under his care. “Even
Three days before Christmas in 1995, Linda Horton, a medical researcher in Nashville, Tenn., was diagnosed with a large, fast-growing tumor in her breast. She quickly began her treatment course: chemotherapy to shrink the tumor, followed by a mastectomy—her doctors then told her the cancer was stage II—and additional chemotherapy afterward. Horton didn’t
More than a signature Read More »
Not every hypothesis in cancer research has the same staying power. Some emerge with fanfare and hype, only to fade when follow-up research fails to support a promising theory—or when an upstart steals the spotlight. But even when a promising idea gets pushed aside, it’s not always gone for good. The perfect object lesson: treating
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In 2003, Marlene Nusbaum learned firsthand how differently the world can appear to someone undergoing cancer treatment. Diagnosed with stage II breast cancer, the 54-year-old business executive–turned–French teacher dutifully reported to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, near her home in Newton, Mass. “I had the best care and the best providers in the world,”
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