DALLAS — Dec. 26, 2006 — Read more about this exciting new discovery by Simmons Cancer Center researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center by clicking here.
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Reprinted with permission from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. May 15, 2006
Surgeons removed 15 tumors from Jenny Sorrell's abdomen; one was the size of a football
By JAN JARVIS / STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
Jenny Sorrell saw the foul ball coming, but there was no time to jump out of the way. "It was going something like 150 miles per hour, and believe me it felt like it," said Sorrell, recalling her outing to Ameriquest Field on May 7, 2005, the day before Mother's Day, when she took her mother, Joan Sorrell, to a game.
"It hit so hard, I heard a popping noise," said Jenny Sorrell of Grand Prairie. "I felt like if I looked down, I would see my insides falling out." The line drive, hit by then-Rangers infielder Alfonso Soriano, left an imprint and a bruise on Jenny Sorrell's stomach. Joan Sorrell tried to keep it together for her daughter's sake. But inside, she was worried. "I wondered how in the world could the ball hit her that hard and she could still hold up that well," said Joan Sorrell of Fort Worth. By the next day, Jenny Sorrell's abdomen was so swollen that she looked nine months pregnant. Her sister persuaded her to go to a hospital emergency room, where she underwent a CAT scan to determine what was causing the swelling.
"The doctor said the good news was I didn't bust my spleen or damage my kidneys," said Sorrell, 45. "The bad news was I had cancer." Ovarian cancer. Stage 3C. Sorrell asked the doctor to repeat what he said. "The radiologist said, 'We know cancer when we see it,'" she said. "It was the most surreal moment."
The first doctor she saw after her diagnosis did not offer much hope. But Dr. John Schorge, a gynecological oncologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, was more optimistic and proposed an aggressive treatment. He removed 15 tumors from Sorrell's abdomen, including one the size of a football. He also removed her ovaries, uterus, spleen, appendix and part of her small intestine. Five liters of fluid were drained from Sorrell's body, causing her to immediately lose 25 pounds.
The surgery was a success Schorge was able to remove all visible signs of cancer. Click here for full story.
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DALLAS — Jan. 19, 2006 — Lourdes Cal's bout with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), a rare type of blood cancer, took a turn for the worse last summer. When Mrs. Cal saw UT Southwestern Medical Center emergency physicians July 8, she had an elevated white cell count five times the normal level.
Five months later, thanks to her treatment with the chemotherapy drug Dasatinib at the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center at UT Southwestern, Mrs. Cal said she is feeling healthy again.
"Within a few months, her leukemia would have become fatal," said Dr. Robert Collins, director of the UT Southwestern Hematopoietic Cell Transplant Program who has used Dasatinib to successfully treat the eight CML patients that have come to him, ranging in age from 35 to 75.
Other patients in her situation can join a clinical trial to receive Dasatinib at UT Southwestern, the only site in North Texas where CML patients can obtain the new drug, Dr. Collins said.
In the ongoing clinical trial, Dr. Collins and other investigators at several medical centers nationwide are administering Dasatinib in randomized doses to patients who do not respond to the standard treatment with the chemotherapy drug Gleevec. Researchers observe the anti-cancer effect of the treatment. Click here to read more. This nationwide clinical trial is closed to new admissions.
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DALLAS — Jan. 15, 2006 — A research team at UT Southwestern Medical Center has discovered a cell-signaling mechanism instrumental in the most common brain cancer in adults.
The study, published in today's issue of the journal Cancer Research, opens an avenue to develop therapeutic drugs to target the epidermal growth factor receptor genes that play a major role in the development of deadly brain tumors, researchers said. The median survival of patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), a cancer of the supportive tissue of the brain, currently is about one year after diagnosis with the best treatments available, said Dr. Amyn Habib, assistant professor of neurology at UT Southwestern and the study's senior author. GBM, which accounts for 60 percent of brain tumors in adults older than 50 years, can infiltrate the brain extensively and sometimes becomes enormous before turning symptomatic.
Researchers have known for years that tumor cells proliferate out of control by a mechanism characterized by an abnormally high number of copies of the epidermal growth factor receptor gene (EGFR). This overexpression of EGFR, Dr. Habib said, is a striking feature of glioblastoma multiforme, present in 40 percent to 50 percent of tumors and results in an uncontrolled multiplication of both normal EGFR and a mutant form called EGFRvIII. Click here to read more.
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Simmons News Archive 2007
Simmons News Archive 2005
Simmons Media Contact: Connie Piloto, 214-648-3404
connie.piloto@utsouthwestern.edu
Subscribe to our medical news updates at
www.utsouthwestern.edu/receivenews
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