PET scans every six months blood tests monthly medications twice a day
My cancer diagnosis interrupted the old rhythm of my life but it's given me a
new one
my name is Steve price and I'm a pancreatic cancer patient
by the time I got to dr. oceans office there was already a lot of evidence that
I had pancreatic cancer stepping into that waiting room and looking around at
my fellow patients was a very intimidating experience and it drove
home the gravity of my own situation when I first met Steve he was very sick
he was in a lot of pain his abdomen was distended the imaging showed two
extremely large 16 centimeter tumors in his liver and another one in his
pancreas the first step was confirming the type of cancer and then getting him
started on chemotherapy right away in order to do that he needed a biopsy
so I referred him to an interventional radiology. Interventional radiology is an
innovative field of medicine in which doctors use imaging guidance to diagnose
and treat various forms of diseases I put a port in Steven price and I'll also
did a biopsy on the same day the port is a disc with the silicone bumper that's
connected to a vein that allows the nurse to give chemotherapy at all times
I also did a liver biopsy of using ultrasound imaging guidance we got seven
biopsy samples and we were able to give Steve the therapy he needed immediately
here at the David H Koch Center health care delivery is increasingly moving
towards less invasive treatments interventional radiology is perfectly
suited to be at the center of this movement
it allowed Mr. Price to receive chemotherapy right away even on the same
day once I got a definitive diagnosis there was no way to avoid the reality
it's one thing to know that you have pancreatic cancer it's another thing to
know that you have advanced metastatic pancreatic cancer that's a grim
experience the good news was the chemo worked my tumors had shrunk dramatically
one of the particular challenges of pancreatic cancer though is that you can
never really stop treating it it has a nasty inclination to come back during
the course of my chemotherapy as the cancer kept retreating and as the chemo
side-effects kept accumulating we had our eye out for other options
I discussed with see various clinical trials for pancreatic cancer he wanted
to participate in a study the problem was his variant of pancreatic cancer was
so unique he was excluded from almost all of them except for one our precision
medicine clinical trial so precision medicine is really changing how we treat
cancer patients especially advanced cancer patients when the England
Institute for precision medicine receives a biopsy from interventional
radiology we sequence the DNA of a tissue that gives us a information about
the mutations that are driving the cancer in individual patients and it
gives us opportunities to understand what the patient could respond to when
it comes to drugs or combinations I still remember when I first saw the
printout for my precision medicine report suddenly that nameless shapeless
enemy of mine snapped into focus it took a little of the terror out of
being a cancer patient we had a major breakthrough in Steve's case the trial
results came back and he tested positive for the Braca 1g mutation as Allison and
I discussed the significance of my bracha one mutation I got very excited
after seven or eight months of chemo my body had pretty much had as much as it
could take I was able to switch over to a pill based regimen that specifically
targets that bracha one mutation it's truly amazing
that Steve has achieved the response to therapy that he has and now he two years
later is living well and all of this was because of precision medicine
I don't know yet whether I've gotten a pardon from cancer or just a reprieve but
whatever it is it's more than anyone could reasonably have expected when this
journey began there's a lot about the future I can't predict one thing I can
predict is I'm never gonna have a day without gratitude
If I could say anything to my care team at New York Presbyterian and Weill Cornell medicine
I appreciate what you did for me and the best way to express that appreciation
is to share this story with others so that other people in a situation like
mine with a need like mine now there's some place to go where they may find help