Although primary liver cancer
once was rare in the United States, its frequency is increasing.
According to transplant surgeon Robert A. Fisher, in an
average month, four or five new patients are diagnosed
with liver cancer at the Hume-Lee Transplant Center, in
comparison with one or two every few months before 1998.
As the incidence of liver cancer rises, so have gifts
and interest in supporting the medical school's Transplant
Research Laboratories. Director of the laboratories and
the Liver Transplant Program, Fisher leads his colleagues
in exploring ways to slow cancer's progression, shorten
transplant waiting times and improve post-transplant care.
Many of the donors who fund liver research are the grateful
families and friends of patients who have benefited from
the treatments pioneered in the labs. The Irvin family
of Virginia Beach is an example.
After Charles Irvin was diagnosed with liver cancer, Fisher
provided medical care and support to Irvin and his family.
In the course of his treatment, Irvin and his wife Eleanor
learned about Fisher's research.
"We'd been one of the fortunate families. This was
our first encounter with anything other than colds and
flu," says Eleanor Irvin. "In the past, this
kind of diagnosis would have been a death sentence. But
we saw how the research benefited us personally. Because
someone supported research, we have wonderful advances
that save lives today."
In honor of the care that Irvin received from Fisher and
the center, the couple began contributing monetary gifts
to support liver research. Eleanor Irvin and friends of
the Irvin family continued donating money when Irvin unexpectedly
died of a heart attack. Mrs. Irvin says that she plans
to continue the tradition in her husband's memory.
The research fund, which has been supported by gifts totaling
more than $235,000, has fueled a variety of projects, including
studies that led to the arthritis drug rapamycin's FDA
approval for preventing organ rejection in kidney transplant
patients. The fund also supports ongoing work with radio
frequency ablation, a procedure that heats and destroys
cancerous tissue by directing radio frequency energy into
the tumor through a needle.
This summer at the American Transplant Congress 2003,
Fisher reported on his use of ablation in combination with
chemotherapy and liver transplantation to dramatically
increase survival rates for patients with liver cancer.
Results from his five-year study show an 84.8 percent survival
rate for patients with cirrhosis and primary liver cancer,
a rate that is especially noteworthy because the National
Cancer Institute reports the U.S. five-year survival rates
at generally less than 10 percent.
"When friends, patients and their families make a
gift to our laboratories, it's a tremendous vote of confidence
in our work, and we're so grateful for their support,” said
Fisher. "It's an encouragement to the researchers
and it's also an important boost to a research program,
particularly early stage research or a promising idea that
you're just beginning to explore."
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