SCCA Patients Talk About Clinical Studies

Victoria Wolfe

Victoria Wolfe took part in two clinical studies at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, an SCCA partner organization, for a rare cancer known as acute promyelocytic leukemia.

First, she tried an experimental drug, arsenic trioxide, which put her cancer in remission. Then she underwent a bone marrow transplant, also in a clinical trial.

"It saved my life," said Wolfe, of the treatment she received in clinical studies.

Carmen Michell

When Carmen Mitchell was diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer in 2002, her doctor told her she had only a few months to live. She sought a second opinion at SCCA, where her new oncologist enrolled her in a clinical trial of the drug oxaliplatin. She received the drug by IV every three weeks for six months. When the trial ended, the drug was approved, and she continued to receive it.

Mitchell tried several different chemotherapy regimens, including Avastin®, the brand name for bevacizumab. “Everything the FDA approved for colon cancer, I got it first,” she said. Three years later Mitchell and her family talked about the experience. How had she outlived the original predictions?

“In my opinion it’s probably the fact that we went to SCCA and they put her on this study of the latest and greatest thing,” said Mitchell’s husband, Charles Shelton. “And the love she has from her family—we’re a strong and close-knit family."