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Liver Cancer Treatment Helps Determined Denverite

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Nov 8, 2008 4:24 pm US/Mountain

Liver Cancer Treatment Helps Determined Denverite

Written by CBS4 special projects producer Vicki Hildner

Reporting
Karen Leigh
DENVER (CBS4) ― Jolanta Stettler came to this country as a pioneer from Poland, 14 years ago. Today, she is once again a pioneer -- this time in the foreign and dangerous country of cancer.

Two years ago, Stettler learned that she had multiple tumors on her liver. Doctors gave her only months to live.

But Stettler had a different plan.

"I talked to my husband and kids and I told them this is what the doctor is saying. But I am saying 'No way will I die,'" Stettler told CBS4.

Today, Stettler is still alive because she is participating in an experimental treatment at Swedish Medical Center. She calls herself a "guinea pig." Her doctor, Dr. Charles Nutting, doesn't disagree.

"Nobody has been treated in the state of Colorado with this therapy," Nutting said. "She's No. 1."

In the treatment, Nutting, an interventional radiologist, guides a catheter from Stettler's groin up into her liver. Then he injects chemotherapy through the catheter. This is no ordinary chemo, though. It is six times more powerful than standard chemo and it is so strong that it can destroy cancer that refuses to respond to other therapies.

But the beauty of the treatment is this: doctors have implanted two balloons, one on either side of the liver. These two balloons isolate circulation to her liver. The chemotherapy never reaches the rest of her body.

Instead, the blood and chemo in her liver are taken out. Her blood is purified outside her body and then returned back into her liver -- chemo free. Once her blood is returned, the balloons are removed.

"Chemotherapy typically is poison," Nutting said. "If we can isolate the poison in the liver where the tumors are and then we take the poison out of the body, the patients do much better."

Nutting calls this kind of procedure "the future of cancer treatment." And Jolanta Stettler is leading the way.

"She's blazing a trail for other patients to follow," says Dr. Nutting. And then he adds, quietly, "She gives us hope."

As for Stettler, her hope is to see grandchildren -- but not tomorrow, she adds, laughing, since both her daughters are still in high school and her son is 10 years old.

"I have an amazing family," Stettler said. "My husband, my kids. Imagine me leaving them? No, I cannot do that."

Stettler has no plans to leave this earth ... not just yet ... because her pioneering work is not yet finished.

(© MMIX CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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