In Heal thyself: One doctor’s experiment, Anna Masellis — who survived Wilms’ tumor, a rare pediatric kidney cancer, as a child and went on to get her Ph.D. in oncology — describes how she fought pancreatic cancer as a 41-year-old:
A week later, I went in for a Whipple, the routine surgery to remove part of the pancreas. It was supposed to take seven hours but lasted less than one; the doctors discovered a 3.5-centimeter mass on my pancreas and rice-kernel-sized patches of cancer all over my abdominal cavity. The surgeon gently explained to my waiting family that the cancer had already spread too far to do the Whipple (and further tests would show tumors in my liver). Then he informed them that I might have only two months to live.My mom took the news hard, which broke my heart, but from what I knew of the disease, I wasn’t surprised by the prognosis. Because of my advanced stage, the oncologist prescribed pain relief and gemcitabine, the most effective drug for pancreatic cancer, which temporarily staves off the disease in roughly 10 percent of patients. But that wasn’t going to be enough. From my research, I knew my approach had to be more aggressive — and that it was up to me to find the right experimental treatment plan.
I believed the best thing to do was attack the cancer from multiple angles at once, using a range of drugs. But in order to do that, I needed to find an oncologist who was willing to push the envelope with me.
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I went through four cycles of chemo. It was grueling, and I was lucky to have friends who cooked for me and drove me to my appointments. Two months later, despite the prognosis, I was still alive. A month after that, in August, I had another CT scan: The mass on my pancreas had shrunk a hopeful 50 percent, and the liver lesions were also slightly reduced. I was thrilled — until I learned that a lesion on one of my abdominal muscles had grown by half a centimeter. Suddenly, my joy vanished; all I felt was devastated.I went home and thought about what wasn’t working with the chemo and, ultimately, figured that the drugs may not have been reaching the inside of my abdomen well enough. I remembered a journal article I had read, which described a procedure in which medicine is surgically delivered into the peritoneal cavity, where it can bathe the tumor cells directly. It’s a method Dr. Bender had long used for ovarian cancer, one that only recently became standard treatment for that disease. Dr. Bender and I discussed the idea, and we agreed it was a good approach. The only glitch: We had to wait a month; my body needed to recuperate and build immunity after the last round of chemo, so I wouldn’t be susceptible to infection during surgery.
I was so energized to have a new strategy that it was hard to wait. Finally, in October, my surgeon installed a port between my lowest two ribs, where the drugs would be infused. He discovered that, despite the enlarged tumor, every abdominal cancer kernel had been obliterated. Gone! I’ll never forget the smile on his face when he told me. I smiled, too — I was making progress.
The abdominal infusions made my belly puff up, and I felt tiny electrical-shock sensations and harsh gastrointestinal cramping that lasted a week. In March 2007, after 18 weeks of treatment, my CT scan showed a clean abdomen. The news was incredible, but I still had a tumor on my pancreas, so I devised yet another regimen of chemo. Our hope was that switching therapies would keep the cancer from becoming resistant to treatment.
It’s been a year and a half since I was given only two months to live. The CT scan I had this past August showed no metastatic cancer anywhere, and the primary tumor on the pancreas had shrunk to 2 centimeters and formed calcified plaques, which most likely indicate dying or dead tissue. Even so, I have no delusions: Pancreatic cancer has a nearly 100 percent chance of recurring. Until that happens, I’m taking full advantage of the time I’ve been given. I spent the summer in Italy with my kids, I see friends and I pick up my squash racket to play when I can.