Frank Price, PhD, thought he had appendicitis when he took himself to a hospital in Utica, NY, with pain in his abdomen nearly four years ago.
Neuroendocrine Tumors
The mission of cancer research – to find better and more effective ways to treat or prevent cancer – begins with a better understanding of the disease. Knowing how a cancer begins and how it grows is an important first step toward fighting it and has led to remarkable advances in oncology.
“While the side effects were very challenging for me to manage, the care I got at Roswell was unbelievable. Everybody, from doctors and nurses to cleaning staff, made me feel so valued and cared for during that difficult time.”
On January 29, the Food and Drug Administration approved a lutetium Lu 177 dotatate (Lutathera®), a targeted radiation drug, for the treatment of gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors.
A new agent, gallium-68 dotatate (Netspot®), recently FDA-approved and available at Roswell Park, can be used as a PET tracer instead of the glucose to identify carcinoid tumors—even very small lesions—significantly better than any currently available imaging.
There are certain times of year when my cancer story makes me feel incredibly isolated. There’s the time surrounding April 14, the day I was diagnosed, July 29, the day I was deemed “in remission” and, the one I’ve experienced most recently, the month of October.
In the cancer world, neuroendocrine tumors are the zebras. Represented by this analogy because of their rarity, neuroendocrine tumors make up just 2% of nationally treated cancers.