World’s Longest Living Gleevec and TKI Survivor. 31 year terminal Cancer Survivor. Army Retired.
Atlanta, GA
Joined June 2009
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20 yrs ago, I had terminal #Cancer with no cure in sight. Read about my miracle! curetoday.com/community/mel-… #Retweet
In the Phase III NATALEE trial of 5,101 patients with stage II or III HR+/HER2- breast cancer, adding Kisqali to hormone therapy cut the risk of death by 19%, with 91.9% alive at six years versus 89.7%. The survival gap kept widening even after patients had been off the drug for a median of three years.
Novartis' breast cancer pill Kisqali helped patients with a common form of early-stage disease live longer, bolstering the case for its use before cancer returns bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
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MARIE CURIE: THE SCIENTIST WHOSE RADIUM BECAME A CANCER TREATMENT
In 1898, Marie and Pierre Curie announced two new elements pulled from uranium ore: polonium, then radium.
Within a few years, doctors were placing radium against tumors to shrink them. The method came to be called "curietherapy."
In 1903, at 36, she shared the Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1911, at 44, she won again, in chemistry. She was the first person to win two.
She died on July 4, 1934, at 66, of aplastic anemia linked to years of radiation exposure.
Radiation took her life. It still saves cancer patients every day.
ALT Marie Curie, the physicist and chemist whose discovery of radium led to early radiation treatment for cancer, in a black-and-white portrait from around 1920: hair pulled back, dark dress.
PATIENT SPOTLIGHT:
• SHILOH MIDDLEMISS
• ACUTE MYELOID LEUKAEMIA (CHILDHOOD CANCER SURVIVOR)
• AUSTRALIA
Acute myeloid leukaemia struck Shiloh Middlemiss at 15, and she went through six months of intensive chemotherapy, total body irradiation and a stem cell transplant from her younger brother. The treatment saved her life. More than two decades later, she lives with late effects including diabetes, kidney disease and a second cancer. Now approaching 40 and working in cancer research, she is calling for lifelong, connected survivorship care, Children's Cancer CoLab reported in October 2026.
Read story here:
cccolab.org.au/news-stories/…
Story via Children's Cancer CoLab
#Leukaemia #CancerSurvivorship
U.S. breast cancer death rates have fallen 44% since 1989, averting about 517,900 deaths. Black women still die of it at a 38% higher rate than White women despite a 5% lower incidence, per the American Cancer Society.
Where breast cancer death rates are highest in the U.S. axios.com/2026/10/23/breast-…
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BETTY FORD: THE FIRST LADY WHO SAID BREAST CANCER OUT LOUD
In 1974, breast cancer was something Americans barely talked about.
Betty Ford had been first lady for seven weeks. On September 28, 1974, at 56, she had a mastectomy. She refused to keep it quiet.
Women across the country started checking themselves. So many new cases turned up that the spike got its own name: the "Betty Ford blip."
"I'm sure I've saved at least one person, maybe more," she said.
She died on July 8, 2011. She was 93.
She turned a private fear into a public checkup.
ALT Betty Ford, the first lady whose 1974 breast cancer surgery pushed women across the country to get checked, in a color portrait: brown bouffant hair, orange turtleneck dress, smiling beside a white railing.
PATIENT SPOTLIGHT:
• VICKY TITCOMB
• PANCREATIC CANCER
• CAPE COD, MASSACHUSETTS, USA
Pancreatic cancer was found in Vicky Titcomb, a Cape Cod bookstore owner, after a routine heart scan at Mass General Brigham in March 2025 flagged an abnormality on her pancreas. She felt healthy at the time, and a stage 1 breast cancer was found and treated along the way. Chemotherapy and radiation shrank the tumor enough for surgeons to perform a robotic Whipple procedure in November 2025. By March 2026, her care team told her there was no evidence of cancer.
Read story here:
cbsnews.com/news/pancreatic-…
Story via CBS News
#PancreaticCancer #EarlyDetection
Two years after treatment, 82.2% of patients given the personalised vaccine plus Keytruda were still free of melanoma, versus 70.0% on Keytruda alone. The full Phase 3 results will be presented at the ESMO Congress on Oct. 24 and are slated for The New England Journal of Medicine.
First personalised cancer vaccine cuts risk of disease returning in major trial bbc.in/4iiAseM
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JANE COOKE WRIGHT: THE DOCTOR WHO MADE CHEMO A SCIENCE
In the late 1940s, chemotherapy was a last resort. Doses were guesswork.
Jane Cooke Wright, a young doctor at Harlem Hospital, joined her father's cancer lab in 1949. When he died in 1952, she took it over.
Her idea was simple and bold. Grow a patient's own tumor cells in tissue culture, test the drugs there, and match treatment to the person.
In 1964, she was the only woman among the seven doctors who founded the American Society of Clinical Oncology. She published more than 100 papers.
She died on February 19, 2013. She was 93.
Today, oncologists still match the drug to the tumor.
ALT Jane Cooke Wright, the Black cancer researcher who helped turn chemotherapy into a science, in a black-and-white portrait.
In the Phase III lidERA trial of 4,170 people with ER-positive, HER2-negative early breast cancer, the daily giredestrant pill cut the risk of invasive recurrence or death by 30% versus standard hormone therapy. It is the first oral SERD to show a benefit in early-stage breast cancer.
Roche reiterated its full-year guidance and said it is prepared to launch its giredestrant breast-cancer pill later this year. on.wsj.com/3W3ZG9a
PATIENT SPOTLIGHT:
• GARY (FIRST NAME ONLY PER SOURCE)
• STAGE 4 NON-HODGKIN LYMPHOMA
• SAANICH, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA
Stage 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma was diagnosed in Gary in 2009, and it came back after years of chemotherapy and a drug trial. With standard options exhausted, he was accepted at 82 into CLIC-01, Canada's first CAR T-cell therapy clinical trial, run by BC Cancer with The Ottawa Hospital. His own T-cells were engineered at BC Cancer's Conconi Family Immunotherapy Lab in Victoria and infused in March 2024. Four weeks later, his PET scan showed no sign of the cancer.
Read story here:
bccancerfoundation.com/news-…
Story via BC Cancer Foundation
#Lymphoma #ClinicalTrials
"Fight like hell. And when you get too tired to fight, then lay down and rest and let somebody else fight for you." — Stuart Scott
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SIDNEY FARBER: THE DOCTOR WHO GAVE LEUKEMIA A FIGHT
In 1947, a child in Boston with leukemia usually had weeks to months. No drug touched the disease.
Sidney Farber, a pathologist at Children's Hospital, tried one anyway. He gave aminopterin, a drug that blocks folic acid, to 16 children. Ten went into remission. Temporary, but real.
Many scientists scoffed at the young pathologist. He kept going. On May 22, 1948, a 12-year-old patient nicknamed "Jimmy" went on national radio, and the Jimmy Fund was born.
Farber died working in his office on March 30, 1973. He was 69.
Every chemotherapy drug since walked through the door he opened.
ALT Sidney Farber, the pathologist known as the father of modern chemotherapy, examining a young child in a vintage photograph.
PATIENT SPOTLIGHT:
• DENE OCTOBER
• STAGE 4 LUNG CANCER
• DULWICH, LONDON, UK
Stage 4 lung cancer was diagnosed in Dene October, a senior lecturer at the University of the Arts London, in 2021. Immunotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery and chemotherapy at the Cancer Centre at Guy's kept the disease in check until it spread to his ribs in 2025. In July 2026 he joined a clinical trial of TIL therapy, which multiplies immune cells taken from a patient's own tumour and gives them back to target the cancer. After treatment, his scan showed the measured tumours had shrunk by 90%.
Read story here:
guysandstthomas.nhs.uk/stori…
Story via Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
#LungCancer #ClinicalTrials
The vaccine, intismeran autogene, is built from each patient's own tumor and encodes up to 34 of its mutations. In the earlier Phase 2b melanoma trial, adding it to Keytruda cut the risk of recurrence or death by 49% at five years.
Breaking: Moderna shares plunged 25% after details of its breakthrough mRNA-based cancer vaccine were shared on social media on.wsj.com/4ic0d0i
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WILLEM EINTHOVEN: THE MAN WHO WROTE DOWN THE HEARTBEAT
Doctors knew the heart ran on electricity. They just couldn't read it clearly without getting at the heart itself.
Willem Einthoven, a physiologist in Leiden, fixed that. Starting in 1901, he built a string galvanometer: a hair-thin wire stretched between huge electromagnets, its shadow traced onto moving photographic paper.
The machine weighed about 270 kilograms, needed water cooling and took five people to run. But it picked up the heart's signal right through skin and bone.
He labeled the waves P, Q, R, S and T. In 1924, he won the Nobel Prize.
Every ECG printed today still uses his letters.
ALT Willem Einthoven, the Dutch physiologist who built the first practical electrocardiograph, in a black-and-white oval portrait from 1906: bald head, full gray beard, dark jacket and bow tie.
PATIENT SPOTLIGHT:
• EVELYN GONZALEZ
• SPINAL MUSCULAR ATROPHY (SMA)
• ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, USA
Spinal muscular atrophy, a rare genetic disease that destroys the motor neurons controlling muscle strength, was diagnosed in Evelyn Gonzalez just after she turned 1. She has received the drug Spinraza since 2020, now through a port placed behind her ear. On Oct. 2, 2026, she became the first patient at Rady Children's Health Orange County to receive the new high-dose Spinraza regimen the FDA approved in March. The 8-year-old plays wheelchair soccer, goes ziplining and was crowned Mini Miss Wheelchair California 2026.
Read story here:
care.choc.org/8-year-old-eve…
Story via Rady Children's Health Orange County (CHOC)
#SpinalMuscularAtrophy #Nusinersen