A rare survival story in a brush with a rare and deadly cancer

A rare survival story in a brush with a rare and deadly cancer
Last update: August 27, 2008 - 12:44 AM
PAT PHEIFER,
Star Tribune

Dying was not an option, Heather Von St. James says as her 3-year-old daughter, Lily, rushes in and out of the dining room, climbing on her lap, then dashing off again. ¶ But dying was a terrifying possibility when doctors found a lump the size of an orange in Von St. James's left lung when Lily was only 3 months old. The diagnosis was mesothelioma -- a rare and often fatal form of lung cancer caused by exposure to asbestos.

Now, just over 2 1/2 years after undergoing radical surgery to remove her left lung, the lining around her heart, half of her diaphragm, her sixth rib and a few lymph nodes to be on the safe side, all traces of the cancer are gone.

"I claim cured," says Von St. James.

Dr. David Sugarbaker, who heads the International Mesothelioma Program at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston, said Von St. James is a shining example of the progress he is beginning to see in the fight against a disease that traditionally carried a maximum survival of 12 to 18 months.

"I am the poster child for hope after meso," the 39-year-old Roseville woman said.

Sugarbaker, who treated Von St. James, is only slightly more circumspect. "What I can say is that right now in this present moment she is disease-free," he said.

About 2,000 cases of mesothelioma are diagnosed in the United States each year, according to the National Cancer Institute. Unusually high rates of the disease have been reported among men from Minnesota's Iron Range since the late 1980s. The state Department of Health has so far identified 59 cases among mine workers and is planning a study with the University of Minnesota aimed at determining what might have caused the illness.

Sugarbaker said the disease has a 20- to 35-year latency period and traditionally has been diagnosed in people with direct exposure to asbestos, but doctors are seeing more patients with secondhand, nonoccupational exposure

© 2009 Star Tribune. All rights reserved