Pancreatic cancer news stories from 2005
Dec. 30, 2005
Local woman works to fund pancreatic cancer researchThe Community News, New York
Feature on Sue Czwakiel Paepke, coordinator of PanCAN's Team Hope for the capital region in New York. "Awareness leads to funding," Paepke said. "The funding leads to research and that gives us hope for a cure. That's what we're after. A hope for a cure."
Dec. 28, 2005
For Flint Hill, It's A Heartfelt VictoryThe Washington Post, Washington, D.C.
Much more than a sports story, piece focuses on Elaine Bigelow, who lost her father, Doug, to pancreatic cancer on Christmas Eve. Three days later she was back on the court, strong and smiling. Her father made almost all of her games this year despite his illness.
"The amount of time and the love she showed her dad was very heartening for all of us," the coach said.
"A smile never left [her father's] face," Elaine said. "Even in the end. That's one thing I get from him. ... I'm smiling all the time."
Therion secures $50M line of credit
Boston Business Journal, Boston, Massachusetts
Therion Biologics Corp. has secured a $50 million line of credit from its investors.
The company will use the funds for the clinical advancement of its two targeted cancer therapeutics, to treat pancreatic cancer and prostate cancer. Clinical data from both trials are expected in the first half of 2006.
Dec. 27, 2005
An early end for a good soldierThe Capital Times, Madison, Wisconsin
Column recalls George Parish, who died of pancreatic cancer at age 52 in 1967. He had volunteered to participate in a nuclear bomb test some 14 years earlier. Pancreatic cancer is one of the cancers covered in the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which benefited mainly mine workers and people who lived downwind from the Nevada tests.
Many help man's fight with cancer
The Jackson Citizen-Patriot, Jackson, Michigan
Mokey Trudell has received a ton of support during his recent fight with cancer. In addition to the moral support he's getting from his large family with 13 siblings, the owner of Mokey's Hair and Nail Salon has discovered numerous advocates in customers, co-workers and acquaintances.
Press release
>> Therion Biologics Secures $50 Million to Complete Pivotal Clinical Development Program of pancreatic cancer vaccine PANVAC-VF
Dec. 26, 2005
Virginia's Ryan determined, defiant in long shadow of cancerRichmond Times-Dispatch, Richmond, Virginia
This terrific profile of a great coach begins:
"What does a miracle look like? Ask Debbie Ryan. She sees one each time she looks into a mirror.
"Ryan, the head women's basketball coach at the University of Virginia, continues to defy medical science, statistics and stacks of case histories by living vigorously more than five years after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer."
In her words:
"I think the best way to describe it — and really, maybe the only way to describe it — is to say, 'This is a miracle,"' she said. "I don't know how else to explain it. Why do I get to still be here when so many of the others" who were diagnosed in 2000 "are gone? I don't know.
"Why have I been given so many more days and so much more time? I don't know. All I know is I'm still here, and every extra minute and every extra hour and every extra day feels great and wonderful and miraculous."
She had surgery in August 2000 and credits the skill of her surgeon (Dr. Rayford Scott Jones of Charlottesville) for her good fortune. Ryan also takes Celebrex, which she began taking as a pain-reliever around Memorial Day of 2000. Celebrex has since been shown to be effective in restricting the development of some tumors.
Vaccine for cancer finds a patron
The Boston Globe, Boston, Massachusetts
In an unusual effort by a single wealthy investor to keep a medical idea alive, a German billionaire is promising $50 million to Therion Biologics Corp., a small Cambridge company trying to develop a therapeutic vaccine for cancer.
Therion's lead vaccine candidate — Panvac-VF — would be a standard preparation designed to work in all pancreatic cancer patients.
Dec. 22, 2005
Fond Friend to Many: Anita Waters Stays Busy, OptimisticThe Day, New London, Connecticut (reg. req'd)
Pancreatic cancer patient Anita Waters honored by local rotary. "My motto is '...tough times never last, but tough people do,' " Anita told the crowd of more than 200.
Dec. 20, 2005
Magowitz tourney nets $160K to fight pancreatic cancerFurniture Today
The third Seena Magowitz Golf Classic here, backed by leading bedding retailers, producers and suppliers, raised more than $160,000 to help fight pancreatic cancer. It also raised awareness of a disease the home furnishings industry is rallying to defeat.
Dec. 18, 2005
Beating the oddsThe Star-Ledger, Newark, New Jersey
Extensive story on the cutting edge of cancer treatments opens with the story of Susan Cordaro. In the fall of 2004 at age 52, her pancreatic cancer was inoperable, having spread to the liver. She was given 4-6 months to live. Her husband found out about the GTX regimen being developed by Robert L. Fine, director of experimental therapeutics at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. She was placed on the regimen in Nov. 2004, just after a scan showed eight tumors in a lung and seven in her liver, as well as a mass in her pancreas. In March 2005, her scans were clear. Fine said he cannot predict his patient's future. Not everyone has responded as well on GTX, though tumors have shrunk 50 percent in half of the 32 patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer treated by Fine's group. Some are living two years past their prognosis.
A Life In Verse
CBS News
Ken Brewer, Utah's poet laureate, is dying of pancreatic cancer, writing a poem a day during his struggle. CBS profile, with video.
"For me it's natural to express what's happening to me with my poetry," Brewer says.
Dec. 17, 2005
Cancer center funds proposedThe Daily Progress, Charlottesville, Virginia
A planned cancer center at the University of Virginia would receive $25 million - more than a third of its estimated construction cost - under a budget proposal unveiled by Gov. Mark R. Warner. In addition, a $100 million fundraising campaign will be chaired by UVa grad Katie Couric, who lost her sister to pancreatic cancer and her husband to colon cancer.
Dec. 15, 2005
Awareness raises pancreatic cancer hopesThe Cincinnati Enquirer, Cincinnati, Ohio
Guest column by Dr. Syed Ahmad, a University of Cincinnati surgeon who specializes in treating pancreatic cancer, frames the awareness issue this way:
"If someone asked you which cancer affects the most people - leukemia or pancreatic cancer - how would you answer?
"Thanks to nationwide awareness campaigns, most would say leukemia. But in reality, the number of people affected by each disease is about the same."
Dec. 14, 2005
Group here joins fight against deadly pancreatic cancerSt. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis, Missouri
Feature on the St. Louis chapter of Team Hope for PanCan. Focuses in part on Gary Hackstadt, who thought he was handed a death sentence with his diagnosis of metastatic pancreatic cancer in Jan. 2003. Three years later, his doctor says: "You're a miracle!"
Dec. 13, 2005
Colleague's father has earned title of survivorThe Clarion-Ledger, Jackson, Mississippi
At his core, Gilbert Metz is a survivor. Concentration camp survivor. Korean War survivor. And now, quite possibly, a cancer survivor. With successful Whipple surgery, he's cancer free, says his son.
Press release
>> Pancreatic Cancer Linked to Insulin Resistance in Male Smokers
Dec. 11, 2005
The road to recovery is paved with faithWinston-Salem Journal, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Christmas came a little early for Margaret "Margo" Johnson, a longtime news anchor at TV station WXII. She's home recovering from pancreatic cancer surgery. "I feel the most blessed I have ever felt in my life."
Dec. 7, 2005
Study uses new pancreatic-cancer methodUnited Press International
A new "reverse" pancreatic-cancer therapy largely reduces the size of tumors and lowers the risk of recurrence. Fifty percent of 24 patients in a study at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H., responded to the new treatment. Lead researcher J. Marc Pipas said he simply reversed the usual course of treatment for patients with the deadly disease, which involves surgery followed by chemotherapy and radiation. Instead, Pipas used chemotherapy and radiation in combination first to shrink the tumor and increase the possibility of surgery. As a result, the researchers said they were able to achieve such large reduction of the tumors' size that a number of patients who previously had been categorized as "borderline" or "inoperable" could have their tumors surgically removed.
Press release
>> 'An Evening With the Stars' Raises More Than $650,000 to Battle Pancreatic Cancer
Dec. 6, 2005
Forde named CCISD Citizen of the YearThe Galveston County Daily News, Galveston, Texas
Bob Forde, fighting a years-long battle with pancreatic cancer, receives inaugural citizen of the year award for volunteer work with schools.
Press release
>> New treatment for pancreatic cancer allows life-saving surgery