The Catalyst Issue 17 | November 2013 | Page 16

Michele Jesse and Dr. Ekokobe Fonkem, at her patient visit. Dr. Fonkem got on the phone with me right away.” Mrs. Jesse started treatment with the device the following week, grateful for the chance to participate in the trial. “Everything just kind of fell into place for us,” she says, as study coordinator Eromata Ebwe wove the electrode wires into a braid down the left side of the patient’s neck. “We call this her insurance policy,” says Mr. Jesse. Getting on with life come from the brain’s normal cells that for some reason start dividing out of control, becoming cancer.” TTF therapy is also being tested at different centers in Europe and will soon be in clinical trials in the United States for treatment of pancreatic and lung cancers. Scott & White hopes to be one of the initial test sites in the country for recurrent metastatic brain cancer from the lung. Patients typically live only 14 months after a diagnosis of glioblastoma multiforme, even after receiving what’s considered the “gold standard” of treatment for this disease, which includes surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. Earlier this year, Mrs. Jesse underwent the grueling treatment, and she hopes to prevent recurrence of the tumor with the help of the TTF therapy. For two years, she will wear the Novo TTF device, a series of four electrode grids worn on the scalp and connected by wires to a device that 16 The Catalyst November 13 | sw.org looks like a cable box. The adhesive patches contain electrodes that create an electric field aimed specifically at the original tumor site. Electric fields confuse the alignment of microscopic cell structures to hold a cell in place before it divides. This scaffolding prevents cells from dividing, and a new tumor to stop growing. Patients must wear the device at least 18 hours a day to get the maximum benefit. Doing all they can The good news is that Mrs. Jesse’s tumor was completely removed during surgery, and a test that determines some genetic properties of the tumor cells showed that her type of cancer was particularly responsive to chemotherapy. Understandably, she still wants to do everything she can to prevent the tumor from coming back, given that it’s a very aggressive type of cancer. Mr. Jesse says, “Right after my wife’s treatment, I called about the trial, and After their appointment the Jesses would be heading back to Denver, where they relocated from Austin shortly after Mrs. Jesse’s surgery to be closer to family. But first they would make a follow-up appointment with Dr. Fonkem, and schedule a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, both in two months’ time. But today there was a more pressing matter. Michele and Ian Jesse were taking their boy to Disneyland, a trip Taylor was very much looking forward to. “What are you going to do about it?” Dr. Fonkem asks Mrs. Jesse, pointing to the shoulder bag used to carry the Novo device. “Well, I’m not going to wear it all over Disneyland. It would be too heavy,” she tells him. “But you’ll wear it more at night when you’re back at the hotel?” Dr. Fonkem asks. “Yes, of course,” she says. n Dr. Fonkem is an assistant professor of medicine at the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine.