New cancer treatment option provides hope to lung cancer patients: ‘Don’t have anything to lose’
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DURHAM, North Carolina (WTVD) — Sitting at a table inside her Durham home, Charlotte Johnson pulls up an iPad with a series of pictures from her previous battles with cancer.
“This is the one that most terrified me,” said Johnson, as she shared her initial reaction when her medical team presented a new treatment option.
After previously being treated with chemotherapy, radiation, and immunotherapy, doctors at Duke explained those would not work as she faced lung cancer again.
“While I got my boxing gloves on, let me be one of the first (ones to do it). I said I really don’t have anything to lose at this point,” said Johnson.
Johnson is referring to pulsed electric field ablation.
“We use a robotic bronchoscope to get to the tumor. Then we introduce this catheter into the tumor and blast some high-frequency, high-voltage electric current through the tumor. This not only ablates the tumor but also makes the tumor more immunogenic,” said Dr. Kamran Mahmood, an interventional pulmonologist with Duke Health.
Cleared by the FDA, Johnson is one of the first patients at Duke to undergo the treatment.
“We are currently involved in several trials and studies to evaluate this. At this time, we are using it for patients who have progressed through the standard care,” Mahmood said.
Despite advances over the years in lung cancer treatment, it remains the deadliest form of cancer. According to the National Institute of Health, it’s estimated more than 125,000 people will die of lung and bronchus cancer this year.
“We feel that there is still something we have in our hands that we can offer to the patient. So there is still some hope. As you said, a few months ago we were setting up the hospice and getting their affairs together. But now there is some initial promising data that it may change the course of the treatment,” said Mahmood, who stressed people should stop smoking and vaping.
He said they’ll have a better understanding of its safety and efficacy in the next year, with experiences like Johnson’s valuable in helping doctors learn how and when to deploy it.
“Some of the anecdotal reports have shown that in patients like Ms. Johnson, who had progressed on the standard treatment, the tumor shrinks and not only the tumor that’s treated shrinks, but we also see what we call an abscopal effect. So if the tumor is in the other lung and we treat the right lung, that lesion in the left lung has shrunk. And in some cases now, as I mentioned before, we are doing studies and trials to understand this better,” said Mahmood.
Johnson, whose husband passed from liver cancer in 2019, said she wants to share her experiences with others in similar situations.
“It’s hard to want to take a treatment that you’ve not heard anybody else talk about. So hopefully (this) answers some people’s questions,” said Johnson.
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