Interventional radiology, like its cousin interventional cardiology, is one of those medical specialties that runs along quietly without much fanfare until it does something that’s impossible in any other fashion. Surgery, even the minimally invasive sort that has traded big incisions for smaller ones, still has limitations — particularly in certain organs and for certain patients. Such was the case for Gwen McCane, a dynamo of a lady in her 70s, who had already passed successfully through chemotherapy and radiation for pancreatic cancer when tumors emerged deep in her liver. Any sort of surgery was just not possible, but interventional radiology offered her hope.
“The great thing is that we don’t need to make large incisions in our patients,” said Stanford interventional radiologist Gloria Hwang, MD, who treated McCane. "We can go in with just the poke of a needle.”
Guided by imaging, Hwang applied microwave heat to destroy the cancerous tissues. McCane went home the next day. “Every day we see people who have a real need, and they’re scared and they want to know they have options,” Hwang said. “My mission as a doctor is to offer them these options and to offer them newer, better ways of treating their cancers.”
Now McCane is back to playing golf, conducting self-esteem workshops at a county juvenile hall, meeting friends to play cards, working in her garden and being a sparkling companion to her husband of 50 years. “I feel good,” she said. “I’m just enjoying life.”
McCane's story is captured in the Stanford Hospital video above.
Previously: New clues arise in pancreatic cancer from Stanford researchers
