PA NC R E AT I C C A N C E R NEW TECHNOLOGIES,
SURGICAL PROCEDURES AND GROUNDBREAKING CLINICAL TRIALS GIVE PATIENTS NEW HOPE
“Researchers are pushing the envelope, trying new things, and that is how science is advanced.”
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s a practicing physician at The Methodist Hospital for more than 40 years, Dr. Dan Jackson ordered thousands of imaging tests to assist in the diagnosis of his patients’ illnesses. In 2004, that same technology detected a small tumor that led to the diagnosis of one of the deadliest forms of cancer. It also saved his life. Jackson, 88, had a chronic intestinal problem that caused him to be admitted to the hospital on several occasions. A magnetic resonance imaging scan (MRI) revealed a small mass on his pancreas and he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. As a physician, Jackson knows how dangerous this type of tumor can be. “I told myself I was going to be OK,” said the internist, who until
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his retirement in 1992 practiced with his sons, Drs. Robert and Richard Jackson, also internists at Methodist. “I called it denial.” Jackson was referred to Methodist surgeon Dr. Wade Rosenberg, who has specialized in performing pancreatic cancer surgery in Houston since the 1980s. He successfully removed the tumor. Two months later, Jackson began a six-month regimen of chemotherapy and he is now cancer free. For many years, a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer was one of the worst a patient could receive from a doctor. In more than half of all cases, the cancer has already spread to other parts of the body, usually the liver, by the time the patient visits a doctor with symptoms. The overall
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survival rate has been only about 5 percent. “Tumors in the body or tail of the pancreas, like Dr. Jackson’s, don’t typically cause a lot of symptoms, so patients have traditionally been diagnosed pretty far into the disease,” Rosenberg said. “For those types of patients, a big advance has been the current imaging technology.” Pancreatic cancer is often diagnosed earlier because of the widespread use of computed tomography scan (CT) and MRIs. Rosenberg said that this technology affects prognosis — the earlier the cancer is found, the better the chance of treating it successfully. There also are improved ways of determining if patients are
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VOLUME 4, NUMBER 2 䡲 3
