HONOLULU — A Hawaii resident, who has been living with a slow-growing yet incurable cancer since 2006, is the first person in the state to receive a new specialized radiation treatment.
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports the cancer in Mary Bona’s gut grew over the summer despite several rounds of chemotherapy and other treatments.
That’s when her doctor found out about a treatment approved earlier this year by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to target hard-to-reach neuroendocrine tumors.
Neuroendocrine tumors are a group of rare cancers that originate primarily from the pancreas or intestines.
The new procedure allows doctors to intravenously inject radiation into a chemical that “acts as vehicle” to carry the cancer-killing drug directly to the tumors. The novel medication developed in the Netherlands was flown to Oahu from Italy with a tight expiration date.