- [Narrator] It was one of Arnold Morawa's assistants
who first saved his life by noticing his eyes looked yellow.
Recognizing jaundice,
Morawa went to his doctor
and eventually was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
However, an experimental treatment developed in
the laboratory at
the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center,
gave Morawa the hope that he could beat one
of the most deadly types of cancer.
- Approximately 29,000 patients a year,
in the United States, will get this disease,
and all but a very small fraction will die of it.
So, if you look at the numbers,
about 29,000 a year of cases,
and look at the number of deaths, it's about 28,500.
It's the fifth most common cancer killer
in the United States.
- I was diagnosed as having pancreatic cancer,
it was in the head of the pancreas.
And they told me that I had a tumor
between two and three centimeters,
that was pushing on the bile duct
and that was the reason that I was getting jaundiced.
The first thing I thought of is,
I don't know of anybody that's survived this.
And so, there was a, you know, a great deal of fear.
But then I sort of calmed down,
and Gail and I, my wife,
went on the net and we pulled up all the documents we could
and we printed them out and we spent a weekend and we read,
really over a hundred different papers.
And we saw there was a chance and so we said, okay,
the survival rate's 4%, we're gonna be one of those.
- Those who can have it removed surgically,
and there, there's a real chance of cure,
although it's still only in the range of about 20%.
That group only represents about 1/6 of patients.
So, 1/6 of patients have removable cancer,
and only about 1/5 of those patients are cured.
So, if you're following me,
that's about 1/30 of all patients are curable.
Our research has been focused chiefly on patients
who have disease that's localized to the pancreas,
and not removable,
but has not spread to other parts of the body.
And that represents about 40% of patients
who have pancreas cancer.
The strategy that we've used that's unique
is to intensify the therapy that will go throughout
the body while maximizing the intensity of the treatment
to the tumor that we know about,
to the primary pancreatic tumor.
So, this is done by intensifying the chemotherapy cocktail
using Gemcitabine and other medications,
while using very targeted
and sophisticated radiation techniques
to limit the dose just to the tumor.
In addition to prolonging the average survival of patients,
our more refined approaches are making some tumors,
that used to not be removable, removable.
And now, as many as one patient in five,
whose tumor used to be considered absolutely unremovable,
can now be removed.
This is actually a very exciting time
in the treatment of pancreatic cancer.
In the past, pancreas cancer was a death sentence.
And I would say even as recently as five years ago,
if someone had a diagnosis of pancreas cancer
that couldn't be removed,
many physicians would recommend
that they seek only care of their symptoms
and not even undertake anti-cancer treatment.
The recent developments,
many of which I think we've contributed to,
particularly using intensified chemotherapy with radiation,
have now made pancreatic cancer,
still a serious disease, but hopeful disease.
And in fact, a disease in which we can hope for cure
in patients who previously had no chance for cure.
- I am 6 1/2 years out of treatment
and I'm doing just great.
I do everything I want to do,
I'm an avid golfer, I play golf.
We are traveling, we just got back from Alaska.
The treatment had no effect at all on my life,
other than impressing me with
the quality of care I received.
The cancer was an eye-opener.
I enjoy things more, everything's much more precious to me.
Life is precious.