Clinical First Highlights
First CAR T-cell therapy patient & first patient treated on Proteus®ONE
The Ride of Her Life: UF Health's First CAR T-Cell Therapy Patient
Sandra Davis-Quinney has been met with bumps, curves and stops on the ride that is her cancer journey. Even with the rough roads she’s endured, Sandra tries to stay hopeful, resiliently staying on the ride.
Staying on the ride is exactly what brought her to UF Health Cancer Center’s Jack Hsu, M.D.
After failing multiple rounds of chemotherapy from 2017 to 2019 in an effort to treat her non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Sandra’s next option was a stem cell transplant. However, when her physicians were unable to collect enough stem cells for a transplant, that option was taken off of the table. Heading home to Jacksonville to get back on medication and let her body “get itself together,” Sandra met with her UF Health Jacksonville oncologist, Joseph Mignone M.D., and began looking into other available options.
When she learned about the novel chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, a genetic therapy that modifies the patient’s own cells to attack their cancer, at UF Health, she knew her ride was just gaining momentum. Sandra was a candidate for the treatment, but she wasn’t just any candidate – she was the first CAR T-cell patient at UF Health.
Hsu and his UF Health Bone Marrow Transplant Unit team spent two years preparing to become certified as a CAR T-cell therapy site – developing policies and procedures, building relationships with subspecialties and earning an accreditation for their stem cell lab. In October of 2018, UF Health became a designated site for administering the therapy.
“This is the first genetic therapy that was approved for the treatment of adult hematologic malignancies” Hsu said. “It provides another option for patients who have very high risk lymphoma.”
The reality of being the first CAR T-cell patient at UF Health didn’t sink in for Sandra until the process was set in motion, she said. She had heard about different trials and new treatments, but now she was the star of the show in one.
“Being the first patient is a big deal,” she said. “If it affords other people the opportunity and the availability is here for them, then that’s great.”
To read the rest of Sandra’s story, click here.
Steven Fitzgerald: Patient One in Proteus®ONE
Steven Fitzgerald of Ocala was the first patient treated on the Proteus®ONE last December.
He was treated for a recurrent brain tumor, craniopharyngioma, which was first diagnosed in 2014 and treated with surgery near his home in New York. At that time, his physician said there was a chance the tumor could grow back. Fitzgerald researched treatment options and learned that the UF Health Proton Therapy Institute has excellent success rates treating this type of tumor. Taking matters into his own hands, he moved to Ocala in October 2015 with his wife and newborn daughter to be near the institute should the tumor recur. His parents moved to Palm Coast to be nearby, too.
Last August, Fitzgerald began experiencing symptoms, including vision loss. He immediately went into surgery at UF Health Shands Hospital in Gainesville to remove the tumor that was pressing on his optic nerve. After a short recovery period, he started proton therapy in Jacksonville in November, commuting from his parents’ home for daily treatment. On the weekends, he went home to Ocala to see his wife and now 4-year-old daughter.
Fitzgerald completed his course of proton therapy on Dec. 26 with a high degree of confidence and hope that the tumor never returns.
To read Fitzgerald’s story, click here.
To learn more about Proteus®ONE, click here.
