Radiation threapy plays a key role in treating many cancers, including, but not limited to, melanoma, early-stage breast cancer, colorectal cancer, gynecological cancer, and head and neck cancers.
With intraoperative electrion radiation therapy (IOERT) and the Mobetron, a great deal of that radiation can be safely delivered right to the tumor bed while the patient is in surgery and while no other organs are in the way. Today the Mobetron is being used to save otherwise “lost” lives all around the globe. Here are just two stories. The same doctor, Daphen Haas-Kogan, associate professor of radiation oncology at the Mt. Zion Cancer Center, University of California at San Francisco, treated both of these patients.
Caitlyn Nuijens, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed 13-year-old, is today a spry, alert gymnast and Honor Roll student a near mirror image of her mother, Cathy Easley, 38. Caitlyn is also a walking miracle. At 2 1/2, a little “boil” was found on Caitlyn’s ear. ”Just spread some salve on it,” the pediatrician advised her. But that boil turned out, instead, to be an aggressive form of malignant melanoma.
Jared Holmes is a strapping, athletic 30-year old Californian, 6 feet 5 inches tall, and weighs 215 pounds. Today he is working in San Francisco. Back in 2003, he couldn’t work – he had contracted a rare type of malignant tumor, a synovial sarcoma, on his arm.
For Caitlyn and Jared, the future looked grim. For three years Caitlin endured operations on her outer ear, neck, lymph nodes and lungs, along with chemotherapy, dozens of scans, and the installation and removal of a port.
And yet the melanoma recurred. Jared, for his part, had to endure four rounds of intensive chemotherapy, but his cancer too continued to advance.
Enter the Mobetron, a mobile electron-beam system designed to deliver IOERT directly to Caitlyn and Jared’s tumors while they were undergoing cancer surgery.
Background on IOERT
IOERT itself has been around for decades, and there is general agreement within the medical community that it offers significant advantages over traditional treatments, especially for patients with advanced and recurrent cancer. In fact, studies have shown that a single two-minute IOERT treatment can eliminate the need for several weeks of conventional radiation therapy, pre-and post-operatively, while providing for better local control, and without damaging surrounding tissue.
However, IOERT historically has been difficult to deliver. Before the invention of the Mobetron, IOERT was usually provided through a process known as “heroic transport.” While a patient’s wound is still open and he/she is still under sedation, the patient is wheeled out of the operating room, down the hospital corridors and elevators to the basement or ground floor, where thick, heavy concrete walls provide the required tons of radiation shielding. Operating rooms, by contrast, are typically on higher floors of the hospital and are not designed to support such massive loads. After being treated with radiation on a conventional machine, the whole process is reversed and the patient goes back upstairs, where the surgery is completed. Heroic transport is just that, heroic. Thus, prior to the advent of the Mobetron, IOERT was reserved for only the most advanced cases in which heroic measures were justifiable.
The Mobetron system, by contrast, is light and self-shielded, so it can be used in the operating room during surgery, without modification, and can even be transported from one part of the hospital to another. Patients, meanwhile, are able to stay put, reducing the risk to their health and overall survival.
From “no chance” to glowing health…
In Caitlyn’s case, family oncologist Dr. Byron Smith referred his gravely ill patient to Dr. Hass-Kogan. Caitlyn and her mother had been told there was no chance, but for the mother-daughter team and their new doctor, “no chance” was not a death sentence, but rather fighting words.
There was, however, one problem: The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved the Mobetron’s use for adults, but not yet for pediatric patients. Dr. Haas-Kogan immediately contacted the FDA, within 12 hours had permission to use the Mobetron to deliver IOERT to the cancerous tumors infecting Caitlyn’s body. For this girl, barely half-way to age 10, a confluence of factors — the right doctor with the right device at the right time — literally saved her life. She is now a vibrant, healthy, cancer-free 13-year-old!
Jared, too, had a happy ending. Now completely cancer-free, his arm healed, he is actively pursing his career as a sales executive, enjoys a variety of athletic activities, and, like most young men, is looking for the love of his life.
Encouraging stories like these are copping up all over the world, wherever there is a wonderful, caring physician such as Dr. Daphne Haas-Kogan…and a Mobetron!
