Lung Cancer Success Stories

In 1988, I was a retired 62-year-old retired New York City policeman and who found a lump in my right cheek and I was referred to a Dr. John Conley who is an internationally known surgeon who pioneered the early surgical management of head and neck cancer. A needle biopsy demonstrated that I had a mucoid epidermoid carcinoma of the parotid gland and this would require radical surgery. He removed my right cheek and much of the tissue on the right side of my neck and then closed the wound with the muscle from my right upper chest. Unfortunately, 39 of the 41 lymph nodes in my neck were positive for metastatic cancer. He referred me to Dr. Grace. This was a rare cancer and Dr. Grace had to investigate what possibly would be the best treatment for me. He started me on a combination of chemotherapy which consisted of Cytoxan, bleomycin by infusion, methotrexate and cisplatin. He gave me his combination every three weeks for six months. I was fine until five years later on a routine chest x-ray when a 2-1/2 cm mass in my right upper lung was discovered. A biopsy was performed which demonstrated that this cancer was completely different from the original cancer and was an adenocarcinoma of the lung. A CT scan determined that the cancer was confined to the right upper lobe and regional lymph nodes. Because my breathing was compromised from my prior surgery, it was felt that it was too great a risk to do a surgical removal of my second cancer which appear to come from the lungs. I was started on 6 weeks of radiation therapy which was difficult and may be very tired. I was well for approximately 16 months when I developed nodules on my chest and left arm and pain in my bones. A bone scan demonstrated metastatic disease and a biopsy of the nodules on my chest demonstrated recurrent non-small cell lung cancer.

I have now been free of disease for 6 years!!

I went back to Dr. Grace who recommended that a nodule on my left arm be removed and sent for chemosensitivity testing. He told me that he had never done this before and that this testing would cost me money that would not be covered by insurance. I agreed to the biopsy which two weeks later determined that Adriamycin, 5-fluorouracil and melphalan was the most active combination for my cancer. Dr. Grace gave me melphalan pills and infusions of Adriamycin and 5-fluorouracil every 3three weeks. After two months it was clear that I was getting better, not only because I was feeling better, but the lumps in my skin we're getting smaller. After sixteen months, all of the lumps in my skin were gone and a bone scan demonstrated no evidence of disease. Dr. Grace did a bone marrow biopsy in an area that had been positive for cancer 16 months before and there was no evidence of disease! Be treated me with the same regimen for an additional two months. The cancer and never came back! Dr. Grace told me that this convinced him that he something valuable to chemosensitivity testing and he would encourage other patients to do this testing in the future. 26 years later I got my third cancer, acute lymphoblastic leukemia. I was admitted to Stony Brook University Hospital where my condition became very grave. I was told by the oncology team they have that there was little to be done because acute lymphoblastic leukemia was not generally curable when patients will older, had experienced prior chemotherapy for cancer and were severely debilitated and bedridden. I was referred to hospice. When Dr. Grace was informed of my condition by my son, he had me transferred to his hospital. He did a bone marrow biopsy which was sent to Dr. Weisenthal for analysis. I was then given chemotherapy based on that analysis and I went into complete remission. I have now been free of disease for 6 years!! I know that Dr. Grace received a lot of heat from his academic colleagues at Stony Brook University Hospital and the academic colleagues at his hospital for treating me in such a debilitated condition. I am now able to walk four miles without stopping and I am enjoying life with my wife and grandchildren because of the care of Dr. Grace.

In December of 2011 a routine chest x-ray at the Vatican Health Center discovered that I had a solitary lung nodule in my left lower lung. I am a Catholic priest working for Benedict the 16th and I felt that as a nonsmoker I had little chance of having anything seriously wrong with me. When I returned to my home in Omaha, Nebraska to see my mother, I went to the University of Nebraska Cancer Center to get a second opinion on the management of my lung nodule. They told me that this lung nodule would be followed and x-rays would be done every 6 months and if it became suspicious for cancer it would be removed. On my way back to Rome, Italy I got another opinion from Dr. William R. Grace who was a former Dir. of oncology and chief of cancer research at St. Vincent's Medical Center of Manhattan, the largest Catholic hospital in the United States. Dr. Grace recommended a PET/CT scan be performed and if it was positive the lesion should be removed and to chemotherapy based on Dr. Weisenthal's analysis should be given to prevent relapse. I unfortunately decided that Dr. Grace was not at a big cancer center and did not just specialize in lung cancer and therefore the recommendation of the lung cancer specialist at the University of Nebraska Cancer Center was likely more valuable. Four months later however, I discovered swollen lymph nodes on both sides of my neck. I immediately returned to the University of Nebraska Cancer Center where a PET/CT scan was performed. They tell me that I had in curable disease but on the good side I would be available for 2 very important clinical trials and after those studies would likely be on supportive care or hospice.

I thank God and Drs. Grace & Weisenthal for their gifts of healing.

I went to New York to ask Dr. Grace his opinion and he told me that two of the lymph nodes in my neck should be removed and sent to Dr. Weisenthal and that chemotherapy should be based on his analysis. He felt that there might even be an opportunity to eradicate my disease if I was lucky enough to have cancer that was sensitive to many agents. I have the biopsy done and a port placed for my chemotherapy. two weeks later, based on the analysis of Dr. Weisenthal, Dr. Grace started me on Tarceva, gemcitabine and cis-platinum with the last two drugs given every two weeks. I told my lung cancer oncologist at the University of Nebraska Cancer Center where Dr. Grace was doing and told me that Dr. Grace was using "snake oil". The lung cancer oncologist also refused to send my PET/CT scan to Dr. Grace as Dr. Grace had requested. Dr. Grace told me that he would need the scans to plan consolidative radiation therapy which was scheduled to be given if I had a therapeutic response to the initial chemotherapy. So 1eleven days after the initiation of my treatment I was sent for a PET/CT scan to plan for radiation consolidation. The results of that scan was there was no evidence of any disease either on CT or on PET scan! After four treatments of chemotherapy I was started on radiation therapy. This was very difficult because I had both the fatigue and esophagitis from the radiation and the fatigue from chemotherapy.

After completion of the radiation and chemotherapy I return to my job in Rome, Italy. A PET scan performed after the completion of treatment again demonstrated no evidence of cancer. I had blood cancer markers that were extremely elevated but now were within normal limits. Four months later however, I began having increasing shortness of breath. I went to the Vatican Health Center where a chest x-ray revealed that I had fluid in the left chest and I was told that my cancer had returned. I immediately went to New York to see Dr. Grace who removed a large amount of fluid from my chest which was sent for analysis and he drew my blood for cancer markers. The cancer markers were still within normal limits and the fluid demonstrated no evidence of malignancy. Despite the removal of the fluid the fluid continued to return and again and again Dr. Grace would remove the fluid and send it for analysis. Each time there was no evidence for any residual cancer. Finally, Dr. Grace sent me to a chest surgeon who did a video assisted thoracoscopy which again found no evidence of cancer but extreme inflammation from the radiotherapy. The chest surgeon placed talc into my chest and left a chest tube in for couple of days. As a result of this the fluid went away and has never returned. I am completely free of disease now for four years and I thank God and Drs. Grace & Weisenthal for their gifts of healing.

Monsignor F.

In August of 2005 I was anxious and depressed. Three days before I had been told that I had an eight cm (massive) non-small cell lung cancer in my right middle and lower lung and over the ensuing next 48 hours my real estate business and my home had been completely destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. All I had was my family, a motel room and whatever possessions week could fit into our suburban. All telephone communications using Land lines had been knocked out by the Hurricaine. There was still some cell service and to my amazement somehow my former classmate at Notre Dame, Dr. Bill Grace was on my cell phone. We probably have not spoken to each other since 1965 when we graduated from Notre Dame University. But there on my cell phone was his number! I knew that he had become physician and by reputation a well-known oncologist and that was exactly what I needed as all the Medical Centers in the New Orleans area were nonfunctional.

I called his number and Dr. Bill knew exactly what to do. He arrange for me to get a room at Miracle House in New York City which is a free hotel for cancer patients who were using large New York cancer centers for their care. Then he arranged his consultation, a surgeon’s consultation and all the necessary laboratory testing that I needed to have performed for the operation to remove this large mass and the involved lymph nodes in the right side of my chest. This was done and before discharge I had a intravenous port placed for the administration of chemotherapy. My tumor was sent to the Weisenthal Cancer Group in Huntington Beach California. That analysis which came back in two weeks at about the time and which I had recovered from my surgery, was started and every two to three weeks for four months I received that treatment in Dr. Grace’s infusion Center. The good news is that eight years later I am cancer free. I thank the Good Lord for Dr. Bill, Dr. Weisenthal and the rest of the team that saved my life.

P.M.

In 2003 at age 38 and HIV-positive for seven years (I was raped on a date) I developed a cough and went to my local physician who ordered a CT scan of my chest. I was found to have stage IV lung cancer a primary cancer in the left chest and metastasis to the right chest, mediastinal lymph nodes and the lymph nodes in my left neck. I was sent to Dr. Grace who suggested that chemosensitivity testing would offer me a greater chance of survival. He sent me to a surgeon who removed several of the lymph nodes in my left neck and these were sent to Dr. Weisenthal. The results of that analysis demonstrated synergism between gemcitabine and cisplatin and I was also sensitive to Navelbine. Dr. Grace started me on this chemotherapy after a port placed into my chest. I received the treatments every three weeks with all three medications. I needed Neupogen to keep my blood counts from becoming dangerously low. After the first treatment all of the swollen lymph nodes in my neck were gone! In two months everything was gone and although I was very fatigue from the chemotherapy and from my antiretrovirals therapy I no longer had a cough and could breathe easier. A CT scan demonstrated that I had a complete remission. Although I needed for more treatments of chemotherapy I was referred for radiation to be given at the same time. I was now on antiretroviral therapy, chemotherapy and radiation therapy to treat both HIV and stage IV non-small cell lung cancer. This was the hardest time of my entire life! Somehow with Dr. Grace is help I was able to get through it and I have been well for nearly 13 years. Ten years after my treatment I developed coronary artery disease, which was a complication of radiation therapy and I had undergo coronary artery bypass surgery. I still take antiretroviral therapy for HIV but I am living close to a normal life. I think Dr. Grace and Dr. Weisenthal are remarkable people for giving me a cure of my "incurable" stage IV metastatic lung cancer.

J.V.