Tag Archives: cancer

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Tampa Bay Times: At Moffitt, a push to ease cancer’s toll in the workplace

By Justine Griffin

Cathy Bishop, a retired teacher and assistant principal in Hillsborough County, is in remission after treating stage IV colon cancer at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. The disease affected key decisions about her career and retirement. [Photo courtesy of Moffitt Cancer Center]

Cathy Bishop worked as a teacher and assistant principal at Hillsborough County schools for nearly 35 years when she found out she had colon cancer.

Diagnosed after a routine colonoscopy, she had to make a tough decision about how she was going to let the disease impact her career. She would rely on the health insurance offered to her through the school district to pay for medical bills that stacked up because of chemotherapy and surgery. But ultimately, Bishop chose to work through her diagnosis and treatment plan instead of taking medical leave.

“My retirement is a teacher’s pension, which is half a salary. Basically, not much,” Bishop said. “I have two sons, and one of them was in law school at the time. I had to make a decision that was best for my family.”

Bishop told her story Monday to a room full of professionals from some of the Tampa Bay region’s largest employers. Tech Data, Port Tampa Bay, the YMCA and the city of Orlando government were just a few of the organizations in the audience at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. Moffitt hosted its first ever “Employer Forum,” where doctors and administrators shed light on the cost of cancer and its huge impact on the workforce. They also proposed a new way of collaborating with insurers to make treatments more affordable for patients like Bishop.

“It’s a topic that’s hardly ever mentioned in the workplace, but the employer plays a big role in terms of support for the patient and their family,” said Dr. Louis Harrison, chief partnership officer at Moffitt and one of several physicians who shared stories about how difficult it can be for patients to balance work and cancer.

“Just recently I was treating a patient with neck and head cancer who was worried a test was going to take too long,” he said. “He told me he had to get back to work or else they were going to be angry with him. What a predicament.”

Read more here.

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Tampa Bay Times: Coming soon at two Tampa Bay area hospitals: a cancer treatment that could replace chemo

By Justine Griffin

Benjamin Gilkey, 7, with his mother, Laura Gilkey, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 2014. He was treated at Johns Hopkins All Children's Hosptial in St. Petersburg until his death in February. Doctors say CAR-T treatment might have helped "Benji" had it been available at the time. "It will draw more people to Johns Hopkins," Laura Gilkey said. [Photos courtesy of Laura Gilkey]

A new cancer treatment that could eventually replace chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants — along with their debilitating side effects — soon will be offered at two of Tampa Bay’s top-tier hospitals.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in August approved the first ever Chimeric Antigen Receptor Therapy, or “CAR-T cell therapy,” for children and young adults up to age 25 suffering from leukemia and other blood and bone cancers. And just this week, the agency approved the same immunotherapy for adults with large B cell lymphoma, a form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg will be the first and only pediatric hospital in Florida to become a certified treatment center. Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa also will be among the first in the country to offer the same therapy on adults with blood cancers like B cell lymphoma.

CAR-T uses white blood cells from the patient’s immune system and re-engineers them in a lab to target and wipe out cancer cells. Specialists draw the cells from the patient’s blood and “re-program” them to go after blood and bone marrow-type cancer cells instead of the flu or any other bacteria or infection they would normally attack, said Dr. Frederick Locke, a principal investigator for the experimental therapy at Moffitt.

During the laboratory process, scientists work with receptors, which are molecular structures in cells that tell them what to do based on messages they receive in the bloodstream. In this instance, they add a chimeric antigen receptor, or CAR, to each T-cell. The CARs are programmed to target a specific protein, called CD19, found on cancer cells.

Then the newly trained T-cells are infused back into the body to do their job.

Read more here.