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My Answer to Cancer
Patient Profile: Cassandra Woods
Posted Date: 8/19/2005
I had the good fortune or divine intervention, whichever you believe of being referred to Karmanos,, she says. IIm so thankful I was..
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Cassandra Woods is the State Director of Sen. Carl Levin’s Michigan Operation. She’s professional, organized and effective.
So when she found a lump in her breast in 1995, she took an organized and logical approach to diagnosis – contacting the American Cancer Society for a referral to mammography and breast cancer experts in her area. The national cancer organization referred her to the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit.
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Cassandra Woods
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As one of only 39 nationally designated comprehensive cancer centers in the United States, patients at Karmanos Cancer Institute have access to advanced diagnostic services and innovative treatments, often before they are available at other hospitals.
“I had the good fortune – or divine intervention, whichever you believe – of being referred to Karmanos,” she says. “I’m so thankful I was.”
The lump was breast cancer. After consulting with the breast cancer team at Karmanos, she chose an aggressive treatment. Surgeons removed the cancer and then enrolled Cassandra in a clinical trial of a new cancer therapy. Lawrence Flaherty, M.D. at Karmanos Cancer Institute was the local trial investigator of this national study.
“What made Cassandra a good candidate for a treatment trial was the fact that she’s a very bright, enthusiastic and motivated individual,” Dr. Flaherty says. “People who approach their cancer with enthusiasm for treatment are typically some of the people who have the best outcomes and the most opportunities.”
The clinical trial was a study of three chemotherapy drugs – Adriamycin, Cytoxan, and Taxol – given at standard and higher than standard doses. Physician researchers at Karmanos were trying to determine exactly how much patients would benefit from the addition of Taxol and what side effects they would experience.
Cassandra recognized the potential benefits of participating in a clinical trial – benefits that went beyond her personal fight against cancer. The trial ended up identifying that the addition of Taxol to standard chemotherapy was advantageous and has since become the standard of care in the United States.
“Most people who participate in a clinical trial know there may or may not be an additional benefit to them compared with standard therapy, but they understand that the trial will help answer important questions for patients in the future,” Dr. Flaherty says. “All of the care that’s available today is the result of patients participating in clinical trials. For some patients, taking part in a trial is a nice way to pay back the people who participated in trials in the past and to help the next generation of cancer patients.”
As part of the clinical trial, Cassandra needed to take a special medication after her chemotherapy to prevent side effects. One day when she forgot her medication at the Institute, she learned how caring her physicians and nurses were.
“A woman from Karmanos called me and said I’d forgotten my medication. I was ready to send someone back over there to get it, but then she told me that she lived near me and she’d drop it off on her way home,” she says. “I was just amazed at that.”
Cassandra never experienced serious side effects and the aggressive treatment worked. Ten years later, Cassandra, 55, is cancer free and healthy.
Today, she provides support to other women who are “walking with breast cancer.” In 2001, Cassandra and a few other women established the Greater Metro Detroit Chapter of the Sisters Network, a national support group for African-American women with breast cancer.
“African Americans have a tremendously high mortality rate when it comes to cancer,” she says. “There are a lot of myths and misperceptions about cancer in the African-American community. But you don’t have to die when you have cancer. You can live.”
Cassandra says she’s impressed with Karmanos Cancer Institute’s awareness of those myths and the Institute’s understanding of the role spirituality plays in healing – especially in the African-American community. But she’d recommend Karmanos Cancer Institute to anyone with cancer, African-American or not.
“It’s simple: I recommend Karmanos because they focus on cancer,” she says. “You don’t go to Karmanos for high blood pressure. You don’t go there for diabetes. You don’t go there for arthritis. You go to Karmanos because everyone there is focused on the treatment of cancer and nothing else.”
 
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