CURE Talks Cancer

When Sean Korbitz was a 20-year-old college student, his life trajectory changed with a rare cancer diagnosis, resulting in the removal of 40 tumors; fifteen years later, a new drug made him feel like a “medical miracle.”  

After Marshall Morris was diagnosed with a rare cancer and given only six months to live, he created a charity that empowers people with terminal illness and provides them with counseling and support. 

A 17-year survivor shares her experience getting diagnosed with mesothelioma, a rare and deadly cancer, at 36, when people with this cancer are typically diagnosed at a much older age and given months to live. 

For Tara Rolle, the treatment was the easy part of her cancer experience. 
Diagnosed with small-cell neuroendocrine cervical cancer, a rare and aggressive form of cancer, at 37, Rolle was initially shocked but then jumped into planning mode. She rallied her family for support, figured out the most appropriate way to explain the situation to her teenage daughter and even managed to continue her job as a San Francisco school superintendent while undergoing treatment. 
At The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Rolle received overlapping cancer treatment. After undergoing six rounds of chemotherapy, 30 rounds of external-beam radiation and three brachytherapies (when radioactive sources are placed inside the patient to kill cancer cells and shrink tumors), Rolle was officially declared free of cancer in July 2020 — five months after first being diagnosed. 
While Rolle’s family was relieved and ready to move on, Rolle was unable to join them. 

Fears of cancer recurrence plagued her, and she found herself taking long walks and writing down these thoughts, which she dubbed “the white noise of survivorship,” in an attempt to give them less power over her mindset. 
Realizing that these long messages could help communicate her feelings of anxiety to her family and help other survivors in similar situations, Rolle decide to put them into a book, “The White Noise of Survivorship: and Other Unsolicited Lessons I Learned From Cancer.”
In today’s episode of the “Cancer Horizons” podcast, Rolle shares the unexpected upsides of undergoing cancer treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic, why she chose to not initially go public with her diagnosis, how writing her book helped process her fears of cancer recurrence and more.  

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Kelly Thomas wasn’t expecting to be on this side of the breast cancer experience. 
Thomas worked in finance and the company she was employed at regularly partnered with the American Cancer Society. Throughout the years, she routinely volunteered to collect donations for the American Cancer Society during breast cancer walks. 
 
 
Despite not having a family history of breast cancer, she remained diligent about self-exams but never noticed anything. Everything changed one December morning in 2017, when she sat down to watch TV and felt a large lump on her left breast. Thomas, who was 33 at the time, immediately made an appointment to see her gynecologist who then referred her to get a mammogram.  A week later, she was diagnosed with stage 3 triple-negative breast cancer.
In today’s episode of the “Cancer Horizons” podcast, Thomas breaks down her journey from volunteer to patient to advocate, the isolation she felt navigating breast cancer as a younger woman, starting an Instagram account to promote positive stories of patients living with triple-negative breast cancer and more.   
 
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Has anyone ever thought that reading the fine print of a document would save their life? 
When David Sturges, an attorney from New Ulm, Minnesota, went to the doctor for a CT scan to assess his risk for heart disease, he wasn’t expecting a lung cancer diagnosis. After all, he had quit smoking almost 20 years ago and was only 53 years old. 
However, when the scan came back with a footnote noting there was a mass on the lobe of his right lung, Sturges immediately went in for a biopsy. In February 2002, he was diagnosed with stage 1A non-small lung cancer and shortly after, had a lobectomy (the removal of the lower lobe of the right lung). 

A year later, his doctor noticed a new suspicious mass and recommended another surgery. When Sturges sought a second opinion, the new oncologist stated that he did not recommend surgery at that time. With regular screening that monitored the growth of the tumor, Sturges was able to avoid another surgery until 2017. 

On today’s episode of the “Cancer Horizons” podcast, Sturges, who is now 75, shares how cancer treatments have changed in the past 21 years, his advocacy work with the Lung Cancer Foundation of America (a research foundation based in New Ulm, Minnesota), the importance of seeking genetic testing, decreasing the stigma around smokers getting lung cancer and more. 

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Jeffery Battles, a 53-year-old with stage 4 lung cancer, says that he feels lucky for having a rare genetic mutation.

The father of three from Connie Lake, Pennsylvania, wasn’t expecting lung cancer to become part of his life. Even when he started experiencing chest pains in February 2021, Battles originally dismissed the pains as lingering symptoms from an earlier case of COVID-19.

Once he finally saw his doctor, he was diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer, the most common type of lung cancer. He then immediately underwent genetic testing, which revealed that Battles had an EGFR exon 20 insertion mutation — information his doctors used to modify his cancer treatment. 

EGFR exon 20 insertion mutation is a mutation in the cells that increases the growth of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), a protein on cells that helps cancer cells grow. Of note, cancers with an EGFR exon 20 insertion mutation doesn’t respond to tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), the typical treatment for EGFR-positive lung cancer.

In today’s episode of “Cancer Horizons,” Battles describes how he feels fortunate to know the status of his mutation, and how it helped him be proactive with his cancer treatment, finding support from his family and online communities.

What do you do when your professional training tells you that something might be off with your body, but your doctors disagree?
That’s the position Kate Laseter found herself in last August. As a histology technician — someone who is trained to turn tissue samples into microscopic slides for a pathologist to read for research or diagnostic purposes — Laseter was very diligent with her health. And since she worked for a lab in Golden, Colorado, that specialized in breast cancer research, she noted she was diligent with self-breast exams. She was also well informed about Ki-67, a protein that is expressed when tumor cells divide. A high Ki-67 index indicates aggressive tumor growth. The median Ki-67 score is 15%.
After finding a lump, she tried to get a mammogram but was denied due to her age (she was 29 at the time). When doctors dismissed the findings of her ultrasound and said to wait three to six months to get a biopsy, Laseter had to fight to get it done right away. Eight weeks after finding the lump, Laseter was diagnosed with HER-2 positive stage 2 invasive ductal carcinoma with a grade 3 histological score and a Ki-67 score of 65%. 
Of note, grade 3 histological score indicates abnormal cancer cells that may spread more aggressively. After receiving chemotherapy and a double mastectomy, she was declared cancer-free in March 2022.
In today’s episode of the “Cancer Horizons” podcast, the 30-year-old Thornton, Colorado, resident shares her cancer journey, how her job as a histology technician helped guide her through her diagnosis and treatment, the important role Ki-67 scores can play in breast cancer treatment, the significance of self-advocacy as a patient with cancer and more. 

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A patient with metastatic breast cancer shares how she learned that her disease was recently reclassified as HER-2 low, and what it was like to first learn about the FDA-approved drug years before she would be prescribed the treatment.