“ I ’ m so grateful for this trial – my life would be so different without it ,” King said . “ I can live a normal life . Nothing about me screams that I have cancer . I wouldn ’ t even know , except for the fact that I know . Other than that , I ’ m perfectly normal and healthy and have no complications .”
When Stephanie King was offered the opportunity to participate in a clinical trial to treat her brain tumor , at first she envisioned the worst .
“ I thought I was going to be someone ’ s lab rat ,” King said . “ It was a little scary to think that this is untested and they don ’ t know if it ’ s going to work . But everything up to that point had been scary . When they tell you that you have a brain tumor , it feels like your whole world has been pulled from under you . It ’ s the scariest of scary . I was thinking that my kids aren ’ t going to have a mom and my husband will be a widower .”
Shortly before her 34th birthday , King was diagnosed with a grade 2 astrocytoma tumor ( glioma ) in her right temporal lobe . It is one of the leading causes of cancer deaths among young people . Surgery in late 2019 shrunk the tumor , but it couldn ’ t be removed without cutting out part of her brain .
At that point , UAB Medicine neuro-oncologist Burt Nabors , M . D ., told King the best option would be to wait to see if the tumor began to grow again before diving into chemotherapy and radiation . If nothing changed after a year , she could begin the clinical trial , a study involving an IDH ( isocitrate dehydrogenase ) inhibitor taken as a daily oral therapy .
“ There was no reason not to try it , because if we were going to watch and wait anyway , at least I could watch and wait while still trying something ,” King said .
In this trial , half of the participants received a placebo . If their tumor began to grow , however , they would be given the option to switch to the actual drug . That ’ s what happened to King , and she began active treatment last year . Since then , not only has the tumor stopped growing , King ’ s most recent MRI showed slight shrinkage .
“ She now has a controlled disease ,” said Dr . Nabors , the inaugural holder of the William Austin Brown Endowed Professorship for Brain Cancer Research . “ It may not make the tumor go away , but the goal is to keep it from growing . The results of the study ( published in the New England Journal of Medicine in June 2023 ) were fairly dramatic , in that those who received the drug had a significant delay in the need to go on to additional treatment .”
“ Stephanie has done a lot to advance the care for brain cancer patients , because this drug will wind up being FDA-approved and available to everybody ,” Dr . Nabors continued . “ It was a very impactful study , one of the most impactful in my career . It will change the way we treat patients in their 20s to 40s who have this cancer .”
King certainly appreciates the broader impact of the trial , but she is overjoyed by what the results have meant for her personally .
“ I ’ m so grateful for this trial – my life would be so different without it ,” King said . “ I can live a normal life . Nothing about me screams that I have cancer . I wouldn ’ t even know , except for the fact that I know . Other than that , I ’ m perfectly normal and healthy and have no complications .” ❚■
STEPHANIE KING
SPRING / FALL 2024 | 41