An elderly couple entered the Charles Sammons Cancer lobby at Dallas’ Baylor Scott And White Medical Center this morning and took two seats. Looking a little bewildered at the crowd of people standing and chatting, the gentleman turned to the lady and remarked, “I wonder if it’s always so busy.”
They soon learned this scene was not typical of the center. Rather, the sizable gathering of business and civic leaders — among them Microsoft’s Dean Cimini and Armeet Patel; philanthropist Jeanne Whitman Bobbitt; healthcare professionals like Drs. Leonard Riggs and Jeffrey Zohar; Patient Navigator Stacey Webb and Baylor Cancer Center COO JaNeene Jones; and Baylor Scott And White Dallas Foundation Board Chair Norm Bagwell, Baylor Scott And White Chief Philanthropy And Community Affairs Officer Kristi Sherril Hoyl, Baylor Scott And White Foundation Dallas President Ben Renberg, Development VP Christina Goodman and Development Senior Director Tim Brown — was here for the announcement of a development that’s aimed at revolutionizing the battle against cancer.
In this war, the development’s mastermind, Dr. Ronan Kelly, had come up with a remarkable approach to detecting the disease. In the past, scans and symptoms were the way patients learned they had cancer. But the Irish doctor, who’s been with Baylor Scott And White since 2018, wanted to get ahead of the game. Instead of waiting and having to tell a patient, “You have cancer,” he wanted to be able to follow that up by adding: “Fortunately, we caught it early.”
To detect the earliest signs of cancer, he said, “What we’re doing is looking for something called ‘circulating tumor DNA’ — tiny fragments of cancer that shed off the tumor into the bloodstream, in the urine, even into tear ducts.”
The idea is that, instead of having to undergo the likes of mammograms and colonoscopies to detect cancer, patients could simply have their blood and/or urine tested when they get their annual physical exam.
To improve cancer care with Kelly’s vision of early detection using advanced technology and emerging AI tools, the Texas Cancer Interception Institute was created.
As with any battle, though, it requires a dedicated group to be on the frontlines. In addition to the specialists and support staff at Baylor Scott And White, another hero in the fight emerged. While he didn’t have a medical degree, he had first-hand knowledge of fighting cancer, having received a probable death sentence and eventually making a miraculous recovery, thanks to recent advancements in treatment.
He is Jeff York, who told attendees how he was living a pretty wonderful life back in August of 2015.
“I was living my best life, in the best shape of my life. You know, I was crushing it,” Jeff said. “And in the business world, everything was just going fabulous. The family [wife Carmen, daughter Kathryn, son Evan and daughter-in-law Tiffany] was doing well.”
But when he developed trouble swallowing, his doctor recommended an endoscopy. It discovered he had a rare form of cancer of the esophagus. Suddenly his “best life” was turned upside down. He spent months away from his family in Houston, undergoing treatments. Two months after he thought he was in the clear, they discovered more than 20 new tumors. His Houston oncologist said, “Jeff, less than 10% of people with a recurrence of this live more than five years.”
Jeff would have none of that, recalling telling the oncologist, “God knows my expiration date. You don’t.”
He called his Dallas doctor and said, “You’ve got to get me out of here. I’m not afraid to die. I just don’t want to die now. I’ve got too much going on. I’ve got kids that are going to get married and grandkids and I want to see all that.” He wanted his doctor to find the “very best doctor in the world for recurrence of this cancer. I don’t care where he or she is. I’ll go anywhere, anytime, for any length of period.”
Two days later, his doctor told him he had found such a person. Jeff’s response, “Great! Where do I need to go?” The doctor said, “Nowhere. His name is Dr. David McCollum and he’s at Baylor Scott And White.”
In meeting with Jeff and going over the situation, McCollum put Jeff on a mix of chemotherapy and an infused drug called Herceptin (trastuzumab). Months later, when Jeff went in for the results of a PET scan, Dr. McCollum walked in and said, “If I didn’t know that you had cancer, there would be absolutely no way to tell from the PET scan. Because you have no signs of cancer in your body.”
After being taken off the chemo and continuing with Herceptin, Jeff met with Dr. McCollum and said, “OK, when do we get done with this, because I’d like to get this port out and be done with this whole process.”
Dr. McCollum answered, “We’re not. We’re going to keep going.” How long? Indefinitely, Jeff was told. “I said, ‘So basically, like the rest of my life? He goes, ‘Maybe.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s cool.’ ”
It was also cool for other cancer patients, because Jeff discovered a new purpose: becoming a volunteer at Baylor, where he now “brings a positive light to infusion rooms when he is there for treatments.”
But Jeff is a businessman and knows that waging a battle takes funds. Perhaps due to those long days being away from his family, he and Carmen made “a generous gift” to help build Hope Lodge on the Baylor University Medical Center campus.
The Yorks also were now drawn to Ronan’s work and its big idea of early detection making all the difference in the world.
Today, the people who’d gathered at the Sammons Center learned that the York family had provided a $7M gift for Texas Cancer Interception.
In the crowd of heavy hitters at the center was Angelia Hight. Like Jeff, she didn’t have a medical degree. Unlike Jeff, she had never had cancer. But she had been the very first recruit to be tested with the new procedure. The result? No sign of cancer.
“Cancer is the beast we all know and we’ve all been affected with friends and family,” Angelia said. “Being proactive versus reactive is definitely a step in the right direction. And then representing the African American community, which a lot of times is unrepresented, I feel very honored to be the first in this clinical trial.”