Harnessing innate immune pathways for therapeutic advancement in cancer
Former MTV Star Reveals Stage 4 Cancer Diagnosis: 'A Little Angry'
Heavy/Getty Former MTV VJ Ananda Lewis
Four years after publicly announcing she was battling breast cancer, former MTV VJ Ananda Lewis says her cancer has spread to other parts of her body, resulting in a stage 4 diagnosis. Lewis, who was a fixture on BET and MTV in the late 1990s and early 2000s including hosting MTV Live, shared her difficult news during a CNN roundtable discussion on October 15, 2024.
Lewis, 51, and CNN anchor Sara Sidner, 52, who announced her own breast cancer journey in the fall of 2023, per People, joined their close friend, CNN correspondent Stephanie Elam, for an intimate discussion about their diagnoses and their very different strategies for combatting the disease.
While Sidner followed a traditional course of treatment, Lewis said on the nearly 40-minute special that she opted for a more holistic approach, choosing not to have surgery in favor of trying to shrink her tumor with homeopathic remedies combined with medication and radiation.
Six years after Lewis first found a lump in her breast, Elam reported, she is now battling metastatic breast cancer. Though stage 4 is typically incurable, treatments are available to extend a patient's life by months or years, according to the American Cancer Society.
"I was just like, 'Fudge man, I really thought I had this,'" Lewis said of learning her cancer had spread. "I was frustrated. I was a little angry at myself."
Ananda Lewis Says Cancer Invaded Her Lymph System After She Decided to 'Keep My Tumor'Lewis was first diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer in early 2019, she said during the CNN roundtable, but did not follow her doctors' recommendation to have a double mastectomy.
"My plan at first was to get out excessive toxins in my body," she said. "I felt like my body is intelligent, I know that to be true. Our bodies are brilliantly made."
Rather than having surgery, Lewis explained, "I decided to keep my tumor and try to work it out of my body a different way. Looking back on that, I go, 'You know what? Maybe I should have.'"
Though Lewis said she felt her wellness strategy was working for a while, she told Sidner and Elam that she took her "foot off the gas" and the cancer spread to her lymph nodes.
"My lymph system really flared up," she said. "And so, all through my abdomen, all those lymphs were very flared up, my collar bone."
When she learned her cancer had progressed to stage 4, Lewis couldn't get out of bed for eight weeks, she told Sidner and Elam, admitting that it "was the first time I ever had a conversation with death because I felt like, 'This is how it ends.'"
Lewis recalled, "I said, 'Man, listen. I know you're coming for me at some point. But I don't want it to be now. And if you could just wait, I promise when you do come, I'm gonna make it fun for you."
Ananda Lewis & Sara Sidner Hope Their Stories Inspire More Women to Get Their MammogramsThough Lewis realizes her holistic plan didn't eradicate her cancer, she still sees value in her path, telling Sidner and Elam that "quality of life was very important" in her decision-making.
"There's certain things I know I'm not gonna be OK with, and I know myself," she said. "I want to want to be here, and so, I had to do it a certain way, for me."
However, she now hopes her story will inspire other women to get their mammograms. In October 2020, when she first told her followers via Instagram that she had been fighting breast cancer for nearly two years, she admitted she'd avoided getting a mammogram for years.
"For a really long time, I have refused mammograms and that was a mistake," she said in the video she posted, explaining that she thought that her mother's breast cancer was caused by radiation from the mammograms she underwent for decades.
Realizing she could have caught her own breast cancer much earlier if she'd had mammograms, she captioned her post, "This is tough for me, but if just ONE woman decides to get her mammogram after watching this, what I'm going through will be worth it. 🌸PRACTICE EARLY DETECTION🌸 Share this with a woman you love. These 6 minutes could help save her life."
Sidner, meanwhile, just got word that her grueling treatment plan was successful. After five months of chemo, Sidner revealed on CNN in May that she would soon undergo a double mastectomy, which was followed by 25 rounds of radiation.
On October 10, Entertainment Tonight filmed Sidner celebrating her final treatment and ringing the victory bell at her oncology center. She also shared a video of her radiation burns on Instagram, hoping to educate people on what happens to the body during treatment.
Sidner, too, said she hopes her story inspires women to advocate for themselves and not wait to get anything abnormal checked.
"If you notice any change in your breast, anything, and you're worried about it," she told ET, "don't listen to yourself saying, 'Oh, it's probably nothing.' Because I did that. Just go to your doctor. Ask for a mammogram."
The National Breast Cancer Foundation offers a free guide to when, where, and how to schedule a mammogram, including how to handle any stumbling blocks.
Medical Moment: Pancreatic Cancer Predictor
(WNDU) - Each year in the U.S. More than 66,000 people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
51,000 will die from it. It's the third leading cause of death from cancer.
Because symptoms are vague, almost 80% of patients are diagnosed after the cancer has already spread. Just 13% live more than five years after diagnosis.
But now, artificial intelligence may help doctors know who is more at risk of this deadly disease and diagnose it before it's too late.
From the prep work to the riding, Don Wexler loves everything about biking. Wexler has been riding 30 to 60 miles three to four days a week for the past four decades — even after being diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.
"I was just maybe just bullheaded and ignorant and just plowed on. I kept riding my bike," Wexler said.
But doctors found a tumor in his pancreas, and another in his liver. Wexler was told he had 12 to 18 months to live.
"One of the reasons that there are so many deaths from pancreatic cancer is because it's often diagnosed at a late stage," said Dr. Brian Wolpin, an oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Dr. Wolpin said another problem is that there's no regular screening for pancreatic cancer like there is for breast and colon cancers. But Dr. Wolpin believes harnessing the power of AI could change that.
Dr. Wolpin's team used artificial intelligence to find patterns in over 9 million patients looking at medical records, family history and genetic mutations. The algorithm was able to correctly predict pancreatic cancer in a high percentage of cases.
"We've learned that if we screen patients who have genetic mutations or strong family histories, we can find pancreatic cancer early," Dr. Wolpin said.
Wexler didn't know he had a genetic mutation that made him high risk. But with new medication, chemo and radiation — eight years later, Wexler has beat the odds, is cancer free and hopes to be an inspiration to others.
"You gotta just keep doing what you do, keep living, keep exercising. Cause I think doing that was one of the things that really helped me," Wexler said.
Dr. Wolpin believes AI will be an even more powerful tool for diagnosis. AI is used when a patient's full medical record including current medications and scans, vitals and medical history are included in looking at high-risk patients.
Copyright 2024 WNDU. All rights reserved.
Doctor With Stage 4 Colon Cancer Shares Key Warning Signs To Watch For
A doctor who diagnosed herself with stage 4 colon cancer has explained the key warning signs that led her discovery.
Dr. Lauren Juyia, a gynaecologist, had only two mild symptoms when she identified her own stage four colon cancer in 2022 at the age of 37.
The gynaecologist said she was only experiencing two "mild" symptoms at the time, and has been raising awareness about these early warning signs ever since. She believes many people may dismiss them as something else - which is exactly what she did.
She explained she began feeling fatigued in August 2022 but initially put it down to just being a part of getting older and living a busy life, reports Surrey Live.
That changed when her fatigue was accompanied by a "sense of pelvic heaviness," leading her to have a gut feeling that something was off.
When that feeling of "heaviness" evolved into what Dr Juyia referred to as a "pelvic mass," she realized she needed to schedule an ultrasound. During the procedure, it was found that she had larger-than-normal masses near her ovary, leading to her diagnosis of colon cancer.
Speaking to Good Morning America, she said: "Having a background in obstetrics, we describe size by weeks of pregnancy, and so I was like, 'Oh my God, I have a 16-week-size mass'. From experience, I could tell that this was my ovary."
After consulting with two other doctors, getting multiple opinions, the mass increased in size from 8cm to 24cm within two weeks, which is when the doctor from Florida knew it wasn't "going to be good."
Dr Juyia remarked that she had "never seen anything benign" grow that quickly, leading her to suspect the masses might be cancerous. However she initially thought it was ovarian cancer due to the location of the mass.
"Pelvic heaviness" was one of the doctors two symptoms (Image: Getty Images)By September 2022, she underwent surgery to remove the masses, which had spread to her ovaries, uterus, omentum tissue, appendix, and even her abdominal region. The doctor stated that despite the rapid growth of the masses, she wasn't experiencing any severe symptoms apart from "pelvic heaviness" and tiredness.
She explained: "I was a little tired in the afternoon for about two months previous to this and as a mum with two little kids - I had been recently nursing them, they were still waking up in the night, I work full time - I didn't think anything of saying, 'Oh, I think I need a tea in the afternoon'. Whereas maybe someone in their 50s or 60s would be much more tired from stage 4 tumours taking up their energy."
Bowl cancer symptoms to never ignoreAccording to the NHS symptoms of bowl cancer may include:
Additionally bowel cancer can lead to anaemia (a condition where you have fewer red blood cells than normal), which can result in fatigue, shortness of breath, and headaches.
Dr Juyia was ultimately diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer and started six months of chemotherapy. Throughout this time, she continued working to distract herself from her health struggle, explaining that assisting her patients was "therapeutic" for her.
In March of last year, Dr. Juyia had another surgery to remove an inactive tumour, and by April, tests indicated that she had "no evidence of disease".
After her experience, the mother of two aims to raise awareness about the early warning signs of the disease, including fatigue and a feeling of "pelvic heaviness," particularly for younger individuals.
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