Well, Bronco fans and the Broncos
family now mourning the passing
of Ronnie Hillman. Just 31
years old. Ronnie played four years
here. He was a big part of the
last Super Bowl championship team in 2015.
Hillman was diagnosed in August
with renal medullary carcinoma.
His family described it as a rare but
highly aggressive neoplasm form of
cancer that primarily affects young
African Americans with sickle cell trait.
So we want to talk more about that with
our nine health expert Doctor Paul Coley.
So tell us about this type of cancer and
the role that sickle cell trait plays in it.
So very rare kidney cancer,
renal medullary carcinoma,
less than 1% of all kidney cancers.
And surprisingly,
almost all cases aren't individuals
with either sickle cell trait.
Sickle cell disease or other conditions
which affect their red blood cells.
So sickle cell trait is when you get
one bad copy of a gene from one parent,
you don't have two bad copies.
But in the kidney,
in the medula of the kidney,
which is where this cancer forms,
those cells can sickle,
which means they can get stuck.
So instead of being round,
they look like a sickle.
They get stuck in those tiny
little blood vessels of the kidney.
And that's thought to be the
mechanism by which this cancer,
when you talk about those percentages
of people sickle cell trait.
Sickle cell anemia that we we
used to know so much more.
We're talking primarily about African
American men or African Americans. Period.
African American men and women.
Yeah, this particular cancer is
actually more common in men for
reasons that are not well understood.
But 8% of African Americans
will have sickle cell trait.
Now in Nigeria, in the Africans it
can be as high as 20 or 30%. Wow.
So a lot of countries actually
recommending screening at birth
because you might not know that you
actually have sickle cell trait.
If you find yourself diagnosed,
is there any option for treatment cures?
For this, for the cancer, the cancer, yes.
Yeah. So unfortunately,
most of the cancer is greater than 70%
are diagnosed when they've already
spread past the past the kidneys.
And so there's really no cure.
The fatality rate is very
high and unfortunately,
a lot of the diagnosis
occurs in very young people.
So more than half of the cancers
are diagnosed before the age of 28.
And we've seen cases in kids
as young as nine years old.
Where do we stand with sickle
cell trait though? We we see it.
Is there anything we can do
about it or anything we're
starting to be able to do about
it? Not really,
except for knowing that you have it.
Because the education is the key piece.
So that appears to be the biggest
risk factor for knowing you have it.
Medullary can't carcinoma,
so if you know you have sickle cell trait,
which many of us don't know because
it's asymptomatic if we have it,
but if you know you have it,
you can really identify those symptoms early.
Now, systematically screening everyone
for this cancer with sickle cell
trait doesn't make a lot of sense
because it's so incredibly rare.
But the minute you see blood in your urine,
you see any pain in the flank,
you see abdominal pain.
Unintentional weight loss,
anything that could suggest a cancer,
it might help to diagnose it earlier.
We're talking about someone here
who's so young and an athlete, right?
We think of like peak level of being so,
so healthy and physical,
and yet that didn't seem to matter,
in fact, the opposite.
So with renal medullary carcinoma,
we actually think that competitive
athletes may be at higher risk.
And yes, and we think this
based on observational studies.
So we've looked at military recruits,
we've looked at competitive athletes.
They seem to have it at a higher rate.
We've also done animal studies.
Where we take mice and genetically
engineer them to get sickle cell
trait and then make them exercise.
And the ones that exercise more
may have lower levels of oxygen,
have more sickling,
and therefore be at higher
risk for this type of cancer.
It's it seems so counterproductive,
right? You think you're going to be
healthier in some of these folks?
It's just so hard for,
for football fans who get
to know these players.
Demarius Thomas, we lost him a year
ago from that Super Bowl team.
And now Ronnie Hillman,
who apparently only from diagnosis
to death, only four months.
That is the usual.
Operation unfortunately.
So the most important
take home message here.
If you're African American
or of African descent,
even Hispanics that may have some
African descent in them go and
get screened to see if you have
sickle cell trait so that you can
really be educated not just for
yourself but also potentially
passing it on to your kids.
Simple blood test or what is that all it is?
It's not a elaborate no,
nothing invasive with that.
Well hopefully. Maybe,
maybe someone else might be spared,
but sad to see Ronnie Hillman gone so young.
Thanks for telling us more about it
though and like I said, hopefully.
Hopefully some people are able to to not
not have that same thing happen to them.
Doctor Paul Coley. Thanks.