Word: transplant
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...from metastatic breast cancer, an especially aggressive malignancy that had already ranged well beyond the site of the original disease. Eventually she and her doctors agreed they should attack the advancing cancer with what many people believe is the most potent weapon available: high-dose chemotherapy accompanied by a transplant of stem cells, precursors of disease-fighting immune-system cells...
Geisbush is not alone. In the past decade, more than 12,000 American women have taken their chances with transplant therapy, in many cases only after battling their insurers to make sure the bills got paid. Lately, public opinion--plus a few multimillion-dollar lawsuits--had begun to change that. Ten states require insurers to cover transplants; most health plans elsewhere in the U.S.--seeing which way the legislative wind was blowing--have decided to go along too. Patients know, however, that a company that makes up its mind to offer coverage can later change it, and that laws requiring...
That's why cancer advocates and the insurance industry were so anxiously awaiting last week's release of the most definitive studies yet undertaken to evaluate the treatment. The news, on its face, was not good. Transplant therapy, the studies suggest, may not improve survival odds any more than traditional therapy. The findings, however, are preliminary, and further study may overturn them altogether. By week's end, all that was certain was that an already heated debate would get hotter still and that patients who want the therapy are not giving up hope. "With this treatment," says Geisbush, "at least...
Some insurers, however, had long dug in their heels over transplant therapy, and last week's announcement may make them dig deeper still. The five new studies looked at two types of breast cancer: high-risk cases, in which the disease has spread to 10 or more lymph nodes; and metastatic cases, in which it's migrated even further. Of the three studies that focused on high-risk cases--surveying a total of 1,462 breast-cancer patients--only one found a statistically significant advantage for transplant therapy. The two studies that focused on metastatic disease showed no real advantage...
...South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard performs the first successful human-heart transplant; his patient, Louis Washkansky, survives 18 days...