INTRABEAM helps Stephanie battle brain tumor
When Stephanie Flood was 9 and a half, she started complaining of headaches and nausea. Like any parent of a healthy fourth-grader, Ursula Flood assumed it was the flu. But it dragged on for weeks.
At the same time Stephanie was struggling with multiplication. A normally bright and cheerful girl, she practiced her multiplication tables from the moment she got home from school until bedtime. But by the next morning she had forgotten them.
Ursula didn't know what to do. She assumed it was a “kid thing” that would pass. Then one day Stephanie, lying on the couch with another severe headache, told her mom again, “I really don't feel good.” Then, Ursula says, “The light bulb just went off.” Stephanie's complaint suddenly triggered a memory of a girlfriend who had said the same thing to her nearly 20 years earlier. That friend died of a brain tumor.
The Floods immediately scheduled an appointment with Stephanie's pediatrician. In the office, after looking in her eyes, he told them he suspected a tumor was putting pressure on her brain and immediately sent her for a CAT scan. Ursula could tell by the technician's expression that the news wasn't good. The next person they saw was neurosurgeon Tadanori Tomita, MD at Children's Memorial Hospital.
Tomita, the Yeager Professor of Pediatric Neurosurgery, is the founder and director of the Falk Brain Tumor Center at Children's Memorial. During his tenure he's treated nearly 1,000 pediatric cancer patients. But, Tomita says, “This is one of the girls I will remember. She's just a delightful girl with great sense of humor.”
“If that were to happen to myself, I don't know how I would react,” he admits. But despite the difficulties she's gone through with cancer, he says, her presence in the office makes everyone up tempo.
Stephanie's parents say that her upbeat attitude has helped them stay positive during a terrible ordeal. “From day one she's just said, ‘Let's just get this tumor out,'” her father Kevin Flood said.
Part of the reason Stephanie's tumor was making her so sick was that it was applying pressure to her brain stem and cranial nerves. Tomita and his colleague David McLone, MD at Children's Memorial faced the problem of trying to remove as much of the cancerous material as possible from these delicate structures without causing any permanent neurological damage. At first they seemed to have succeeded. But in 1999 the cancer reappeared.
Since her diagnosis in 1997, Stephanie's cancer has reappeared three times. First she was treated with radiation therapy, then surgery and experimental chemotherapy, then gamma-knife radiation and, finally, INTRABEAM™ surgery.
Stephanie's INTRABEAM treatment took place in January 2002. Tomita and his colleagues at the Falk Brain Tumor Center were among the first surgeons to use this experimental procedure to treat pediatric patients, beginning in 2001.
INTRABEAM is a wand-like device that emits a precise dose of radiation in the cavity created during surgery, destroying any remaining cancer cells. Not only does the INTRABEAM apply minute, controlled doses of radiation, it's also a shorter duration of therapy, which is a relief for children undergoing treatment. Instead of returning to the hospital for weeks of radiation or chemo, patients have INTRABEAM treatment immediately following surgery while under the same anesthetic.
INTRABEAM works especially well for tumors like Stephanie's, Tomita explains. Hers was an ependymoma, or a recurrent tumor that's resistant to traditional radiation and chemotherapy. Tomita compares this kind of tumor to a persistent weed that comes back no matter how many times you remove it. It leaves behind the equivalent of tiny, invisible roots — in this case, microscopic cancer cells that cause future tumors to sprout in its place.
“I really like helping, so that other kids won't have to go through the surgeries I went through,” Stephanie says.
There's another reason pediatric patients are especially good candidates for INTRABEAM, Tomita adds. Malignant, or cancerous, pediatric brain tumors tend to spread to the spinal fluid. That doesn't happen much in adult brain tumor cases, but it's common in children. INTRABEAM seems to eradicate the remaining cells that would otherwise spread to the spine.
Stephanie was a pioneer for this new treatment that Tomita hopes will save dozens of families of pediatric cancer patients from the years of worry that the Floods went through. “She's always gung-ho to be a guinea pig,” Kevin says. “Anything to help find a cure for other kids.”
“I really like helping, so that other kids won't have to go through the surgeries I went through,” Stephanie says.
Since her last procedure Stephanie has become an outspoken advocate of cancer research. She has addressed federal legislators about the importance of funding medical research and was present at the groundbreaking ceremony at the addition to the Children's Memorial Research Center, where a sample of her brain tumor tissue is being used in research. Stephanie also appeared on the PBS special “Children's Hospital.”
Being on television was weird, she admits, but she got used to the cameras. She even developed a friendship with the camera crew and imitated their British accents.
Throughout her six-year battle against cancer, she said she's stayed focused on taking a bad situation and making it better
“I know if I didn't have cancer, I wouldn't be an advocate for the hospital,” she says.
Now Stephanie, who conquered her multiplication tables years ago, is thinking about a career in politics. For a while she considered becoming an oncologist, or cancer doctor, she says, but she's been enjoying working as a lobbyist for medical research. With determination — and INTRABEAM — it seems likely that she will achieve her goal.
Her mother reflects, “Just to see the way she's grown and matured and how articulately she's able to face a crowd of people, stand up there with poise and grace, I have to say, ‘Wow, that's my daughter.'”
To help patients like Stephanie, Children's Memorial seeks philanthropic funding to enhance its programs and services. To find out how your support can help the hospital better serve children and families, please contact the Children's Memorial Foundation at 773.880.4237, send an e-mail or give now.