ADVANCES IN ONCOLOGY CREATE SCIENCE OF HOPE: Optimism infuses North Carolina's cancer warriors.

• Author: Blake, Kathy
• Position: FOCUS ON: CANCER CARE

Imagine intravenous chemotherapy being replaced by a pill. Or a fluid injection that envelops a tumor's exact boundaries to guide the surgeon. Imagine a laser so precise that its targeting beam captures tiny cancer cells and zaps them to oblivion.

Imagine oncologists using the word "cure."

Across North Carolina, scientific processes for detection coupled with treatment utilizing high-tech equipment are allowing physicians to mount stronger forces toward destroying existing cancers and predict the disease's demise. Armed with cyber radiation, nuclear medicine, strategically developed antibodies, immunotherapy, targeted therapy and oral-dose alternatives, oncologists are increasingly optimistic. And hospitals' outreach projects to screen and treat residents in rural areas who may not have access to major medical centers are assuring more people have knowledge about cancer's causes and venues for care.

"We really do have the opportunity to cure a patient of cancer. We're pretty far ahead in some specific cancers; in some cases, we are there, and for others, we have a ways to go, " says Emmanuel Zervos, executive director of Greenville-based Vidant Cancer Care. "Certainly today as compared to years past, we have a far better understanding of what technology can do in that regard. We're seeing advances that we could never have imagined five years ago."

Jay Manikkam, a medical oncologist at UNC Cancer Care at Nash's Danny Talbott Cancer Center in Rocky Mount, points out that physicians used to say stage 4 cancer was incurable.

"Patients only had six months or so. Now, they are lasting five years. And some have actually stopped their treatment after five years," he says.

At the Sandra Levine Young Women's Breast Cancer Program, part of Atrium Health's Levine Cancer Institute in Charlotte, co-directors Julie Fisher, a medical oncologist, and Lejla Hadzikadic Gusic, a breast surgical oncologist, specialize in treating women 40 and younger. They say five-year survival rates for patients with early-stage breast cancer exceed 90%.

"These numbers have improved steadily over the past decades thanks to improved screening technology, improved education about the importance of screening, and improvements in the treatments we offer," Fisher says.

Vidant, with a coverage area of 1.4 million people in 29 eastern N.C. counties, opened its 96-bed Vidant Cancer Care at the Eddie and Jo Allison Smith Tower in Greenville in 2018. "I think that this building and the hope that it offers for rising the entire tide of cancer care in the east is long overdue. We now have a facility and technology resources that allow us to compete across the state and across the country," Zervos says.

Zervos' arsenal includes the Cyber-Knife System, acquired in March 2018, and Gamma Knife, upgraded and installed for use in December. The radiosurgery equipment transmits highly concentrated doses of radiation to a small area without irritating normal...