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UF Health’s first fully robotic Whipple procedure provides hope
Maureen Stowell and her husband, Richard, reside in the quiet Florida town of Ormond Beach, where she enjoys spending time with their sons and grandchildren.
If she is not in the kitchen baking, you can often find her in the garden tending to her fruits and vegetables.
After retiring as an apprenticeship representative for Flagler County Public Schools, Stowell got a part-time job in retail. When she began to experience fatigue and lost 35 pounds, she wrote it off as a side effect of her new job. However, her body began to tell her that something was wrong with her digestion, so she sought an exam from her doctor in Port Orange.
A few tests and an endoscopy, or nonsurgical procedure used to view the digestive tract, revealed Stowell had ampullary cancer. This type of cancer is found in a very small section of the bile duct.
Stowell’s doctor was quick to recommend surgery to remove the tumor and treat her cancer.
“What kind of surgeon do you want?” her doctor asked. “Good or the best?” Naturally, she said “the best!” Her doctor then referred her to Ziad Awad, M.D., the medical director of minimally invasive surgery at UF Health Jacksonville.
Upon first examination, Awad recommended the Whipple procedure.
For UF Health and Awad, the fully robotic Whipple was a first. It is one of only a few surgeries of its kind performed in the state.
To read more about Stowell’s Whipple surgery, click here.
Clinical Trial Highlight: Refractory Cancers
This issue of the UFHCC Connection highlights clinical trials currently recruiting patients with refractory malignancies.
Questions about how to send a patient? Please contact the Clinical Trials Office at cancer-center@ufl.edu or 352.273.8675
This open-label dose escalation and dose expansion study tests a new liposomal Annamycin as a single agent for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory AML after standard induction therapy. Patients cannot have prior anthracycline cumulative dose >551 mg/m2 or the daunorubicin equivalent which is the recommended non-cardiotoxic level.
Principal Investigator: Jack Hsu, M.D., cell: 352.672.0704
This open-label, single arm study is investigating the use of niraparib (an oral PARPinhibitor) in patients with tumors known to have mutations in BAP1 and a variety of other DNA damage response pathway genes. The primary aim is to determine the objective response rate of patients with BAP1 and other DDR repair pathway deficiencies. Cohorts include the histologies above (regardless of mutation) as well as any tumor histology witha confirmed DDR repair pathway mutation.
Principal Investigator: Thomas George, M.D., cell: 352.339.6672
This open label study evaluates melflufen in combination with dexamethasone as treatment of relapsed refractory multiple myeloma in adult patients with disease refractory to pomalidomide and/or daratumumab. All patients will be treated with melflufen on Day 1 and dexamethasone on Days 1, 8, 15 and 22 of each 28-day cycle. Patients must have had a minimum of 2 prior lines of therapy (including an IMiD and a PI) and have disease refractory to pomalidomide and/or daratumumab.
Principal Investigator: John Hiemenz, M.D., cell: 352.360.9811
DART: Dual Anti-CTLA-4 and Anti-PD-1 Blockade in Rare Tumors (SWOG1609)
This Phase II umbrella trial is a sister study to the NCI-MATCH but specifically for rare histologies (nearly 50 such diagnoses) in patients who have been screened with next generation sequencing for MATCH, but for whom do not have a molecular treatment match. Treatment for all such patients includes nivolumab and ipilimumab. Newly available cohorts include several histologies in GYN, GU, GI, Sarcoma, and NETs.
Principal Investigator: Thomas George, M.D., cell: 352.339.6672