More Survive After Cancer Of Esophagus Sacred Heart Center’s Success Borne Of Teamwork, Cooperation

More than five years after statistics predicted his death, Cloyce Preedy is a newlywed who calls square dances.

Clifford Reeves and Clifford Rees can still play golf together, even if they can’t hit balls as far.

Ben Findley hasn’t gotten sick once - not from the chemotherapy, the radiation, or the fact that his stomach isn’t what it used to be.

“I had very little pain,” said Findley, adding that he’s a dyslexic 57, or 75 in normal years. “Just enough to keep me alert.”

Ten people gathered in a back room of the Sacred Heart Medical Center cafeteria Tuesday afternoon who weren’t really supposed to be there.

They were being honored and celebrated for surviving esophageal cancer, a fast-moving disease that’s tough to detect and difficult to stop. It usually kills in one or two years. Of the 2,200 cancer cases diagnosed each year in Spokane, about 40 strike the esophagus.

From 1985 to 1989, the local five-year survival rate was 13 percent. But an experimental treatment method has boosted the rate to 32 percent - 15 of 47 patients participating in the study are still alive.

Ten patients and many of their spouses made the drive on Tuesday.

“We thought we’d be lucky if there’d be three or four of you here,” said Dr. Joan Craig, medical director of the Sacred Heart Cancer and Research Center. “You can’t imagine how lucky we feel that so many of you are healthy enough to come here and eat hospital food.”

The Spokane community does need a large cancer center that brings together equipment, labs, therapy and education services, Craig said. Local hospitals have proposed a joint center; a for-profit company and local doctors have proposed another. The two sides may compromise on one center.

But regardless of the building, Spokane doctors have been collaborating for years.

In 1990, the newly created Sacred Heart Cancer and Research Center decided to take on esophageal cancer with a new treatment protocol published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and researched at the University of Michigan.

A “protocol” is basically a treatment recipe being tested for its effectiveness on a type of cancer. It usually combines radiation, chemotherapy and even surgery in a rigid combination.

New protocols are developed all the time, at research institutions such as the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. Once they’ve been tried and tested, the protocols become standard treatment.

“The point we were trying to make was to learn whether a community of doctors could duplicate a single research institution’s work,” Craig said.

The community - including nine medical oncologists, four radiation oncologists, 10 gastroenterologists and 11 surgeons - cooperated in the treatment. The University of Michigan results were almost duplicated.

Patients selected for the study all had localized disease, which hadn’t spread past the lymph nodes.

Esophageal cancer used to be treated with surgery followed by radiation and chemotherapy.

The protocol used in the study treats patients with intensive radiation twice a day for three weeks, and chemotherapy on the last three days. Two weeks later, surgery is performed to remove any last bit of cancer.

Other protocols are now being tested in Spokane: one for head and neck cancer; another for inoperable lung cancer; still another for rectal cancer.

Spokane esophageal cancer patients said they had no reservations about trying something new.

“I said, ‘Give me the toughest. Let’s go,”’ said Reeves, 72. “I said, ‘Give me the one that works.”’

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo