Sure. Well, let's start with the basics. Leukemia is cancer. And the basics of cancer is that it's the uncontrolled growth of cells.These cells have acquired something.
And I had to do this in the setting of him having religious beliefs, because he's a Jehovah's Witness, where Jehovah's Witness won't receive blood products Leukemia in older adults may be more insidious and may take longer to occur.
health for decades that people who work in die houses have higher rates of leukemia so we have a long way to go instead of thinking of something as green we should think about Greening wedon't need it as an adjective we need it as a verb and that's what these information systems are going to help us
meant to represent that the cancers that young adults get are different uh the most common pediatric cancers uh are leukemias lymphomas and brain cancer so a L is the most common Childhoodcancer on the other side in adult cancer by far the majority of all cancers are
Thank you for that. So leukemia serves as sort of a backdrop to your book, but there's quite a lot more to what you've written than just the disease. Can you tell us about this book?
And this is an approach that's been used, really, the poster child for this, is a drug called Gleevec, which was developed for a certain type of leukemia , chronic leukemia . And it targets a particular faulty molecule that's made when two genes kind of get glued together. Shouldn't normally live together, but they get glued together.
And each of these character composites started at the same point of tension for me in how they decide the best way to treat their leukemias , given mitigating circumstances of other aspects of their lives or other medical conditions. So when I come out of a patient interaction, my gut just kind of goes like that.
I started changing the way that I viewed humor and how important it might be, especially in a work context, but more generally because I worked with many people who had leukemia about eight years ago after my husband and I wrote this book, "The Dragonfly Effect". We ended up helping kids that had leukemia try to find matches in the bone marrow registry or outside the bone marrow industry for that,
They make the white blood cells that help fight infections, and they make the platelets that help stop bleeding. As the leukemia cells, the cancer cells, fill up the bone marrow, those normal cells die out, which means that there's a little bit of a paradox. A patient may have a sky high white blood cell count because that's actually the leukemia cells growing, and growing, and growing, but very low red blood
So often, an emergency room doctor, well-intentioned, walks into that examination room and says to somebody, you've got to get your affairs in order. You have leukemia , and you're probably going to die. So I tell the story about three patients, one whose name is Joan.
who focused on one drug in a rare disease that actually caused him to lose his job but eventually led to one of the greatest discoveries of a therapy to treat leukemia that we've ever had. It's really incredible. Equally remarkable is the research behind the causes of leukemia , how doctors and patients communicate with each other, and how we all
And I always joke that I've been able to predict the past few US presidential elections based on what my patients were telling me because leukemia doesn't read a political affiliation, and it doesn't read a tax return. So I really see a cross section of the state of Ohio, and that's a cross section of the United States.
And I had to do this in the setting of him having religious beliefs, because he's a Jehovah's Witness, where Jehovah's Witness won't receive blood products And her diagnosis of leukemia was delayed by a few days.
And I had to do this in the setting of him having religious beliefs, because he's a Jehovah's Witness, where Jehovah's Witness won't receive blood products by people who have leukemia .
And I had to do this in the setting of him having religious beliefs, because he's a Jehovah's Witness, where Jehovah's Witness won't receive blood products We think-- so leukemia in a young person generally comes to light pretty quickly.
And I had to do this in the setting of him having religious beliefs, because he's a Jehovah's Witness, where Jehovah's Witness won't receive blood products But somebody with leukemia or related conditions, I know what's out there, and I know what's coming.
Says she's going to do it. Turns out she had leukemia .
You go down two street houses, it was my best friend His sister had leukemia . His dad got cancer in his 60s, killed himself because he didn't want to die a death of cancer.
Breakthroughs require knowledge. So if we're going to intervene on chronic myeloid leukemia , we need to understand what drives the growth of this leukemia . And here, we have two pathologists again.
And what they said were, "The findings--" this abnormal chromosome-- "suggest a causal relationship between the chromosome abnormality observed and it was called chronic granulocytic leukemia . Now, turns out they were absolutely right. But in 1960, nobody believed them.
lady who has a passion for and fire dancing and she was diagnosed with terminal form of Leukemia while she was preparing for competition. And she got the green light from her doctor, from her oncologist to stay in competition and it was supposed to be for in 6 months.
who had leukemia about eight years ago after my husband and I wrote this book, "The Dragonfly Effect". We ended up helping kids that had leukemia try to find matches in the bone marrow registry or outside the bone marrow industry for that, and in that process, just met a wide swath of people.
I never really felt like I fit in in Utah. My father gets diagnosed with leukemia , and we moved out here to California, because his condition was getting worse. So his family was out here in California.
And I just didn't feel like I really fit in with a lot of my peers growing up. My father ended up dying from leukemia when I was 13. And yeah, his death really tore our family apart.
cells because the cells that make those have died out, and very low platelets, because the cells that make those have died out in the bone marrow also. The other aspect of acute leukemia -- and I talk about a couple of patients with acute leukemia in the book-- that's different is that those cells have stopped maturing. So they're stuck in an eternal childhood, this preternaturally immature state.
And I had to do this in the setting of him having religious beliefs, because he's a Jehovah's Witness, where Jehovah's Witness won't receive blood products But typical symptoms of people who have leukemia are flulike symptoms.
So anyways, they started figuring stuff out, and it didn't look good at all. It was a really rare form of leukemia . I had no immune system, and my body was being attacked constantly.
And I started writing. And all the proceeds go to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
Yeah. So I work with a very talented guy whose name is Aziz Nazha. He's one of the junior faculty in our leukemia group. And he has taken on the AI and machine-learning approaches to medicine, specifically within leukemia .
And I had a list of questions. And I would go and talk about their leukemia , their diagnosis, that sort of thing. I'd leave the room, go get my papers with my questions on it, come back into the room and say to them, well,
And I had to do this in the setting of him having religious beliefs, because he's a Jehovah's Witness, where Jehovah's Witness won't receive blood products Sorry. Of leukemia diagnoses that are currently going undiagnosed.
And I had to do this in the setting of him having religious beliefs, because he's a Jehovah's Witness, where Jehovah's Witness won't receive blood products So my entire day is spent seeing people who have either leukemia or closely related bone marrow cancers.
And I had to do this in the setting of him having religious beliefs, because he's a Jehovah's Witness, where Jehovah's Witness won't receive blood products with a lot of the research history and almost mechanics of leukemia .
One afternoon Oliver calls me wistful. "A few weeks ago I thought I had leukemia and it was quite wonderful. As you may have noticed, I have been dieting.
Since you kind of, perhaps more than most, have a spectrum of insight across what various companies are up to in academics? Something like 80% complete remission rates in kids with acute lymphoblastic leukemia .
So breakthroughs certainly take time. Now the disease I worked on-- called chronic myeloid leukemia -- started with its first description in 1845. We understood the cause by about 1985.
So fast forward about 150 years. And the disease I worked on called chronic myeloid leukemia is one of the four common types of leukemia , making up about 15% to 20% of all leukemias . There are about one to two cases per 100,000 per year.
Led to the oncogene field, broke open by Bishop and Varmus at UCSF. And that led to the molecular cause of chronic myeloid leukemia , this fusion gene called BCR-ABL. Abel There was an entire field of chromosome analysis that identified this short chromosome in the patients
I wrote a menu in the spring of 2012 before to do anything else. I was taking care of a little girl that had leukemia . And she passed away right before spring time, and the menu was the point was all about her.
And he was five at the time and battling leukemia .
Women who have airborne allergies are at increased risk from leukemia , ovarian cancer, and breast cancer.
I interviewed a young woman who was battling leukemia who talks about how connecting helped her through that.
We now know that there are smaller genetic mutations that occur in patients and have identified those genetic mutations in about 95% of people with leukemias . So how do you incorporate those data into a clinical prognostic scheme?
Dr. Sekeres is a leading cancer specialist who writes regularly for the Well section of "The New York Times." He's also recently published a new book, "When Blood Breaks Down, Life Lessons from Leukemia ," which chronicles the real-life journey undergone by both doctor and patient in the wake of a leukemia diagnosis. He and I will be having a conversation today about his book, also, about Dr. Sekeres's thoughts on doctor-patient communication, and how
Good afternoon, everyone. So you are a successful cancer specialist. And it's not necessarily an obvious next step to then write a book about leukemia , of all topics. Can you tell us a little about why you wrote this book?
to hopefully eliminate disease. As with COVID-19, the tale of leukemia is actually one of a terrible invader, something I call a malignant golem, that ignores the niceties of health in corrupting the body's normal machinery to wreak havoc.
decisions that will affect their own lives and the lives of their family members. And this is pretty typical for someone who's given a diagnosis of leukemia . The three folks I talk about in the book are actually composites of patients I've cared for over almost two decades.
are always going to be resistant to that drug, and they're never going to get better, and then better tailor their therapy at the very beginning? So these are just some of the projects we're working on within our leukemia group, trying to explore how better to diagnose and treat our patients.
24 hours later, I'm in his room. And I'm trying to talk with him not only about-- trying to explain what leukemia is, like I just did to all of you, but then say to him, OK, and now, here are your treatment options.
He's ill. That's what brought him to the hospital to start with. The emotions of just being told you have not only cancer but leukemia , which, frankly, needs a better press agent because most people hear leukemia , and they assume it's a death sentence-- and considering the agendas of other people in the room.