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Coming Out on the Other Side of a Life-Threatening Sarcoma
April 2007
In 2005, at the age of 36, Rich Lobo was devastated when what he thought was a pulled muscle turned out to be a slow-growing retro-peritoneal tumor the size of a grapefruit. His doctors in Chicago sent him to M. D. Anderson immediately. Here, the pathology laboratory determined that it was a myxoid liposarcoma, a detail that helped to specify the appropriate treatment.
A multi-disciplinary team made up of physicians from surgical oncology, medical oncology, pathology and radiation oncology discussed Rich’s case, a process that was instituted at M. D. Anderson to fully explore and evaluate all available treatment options prior to recommending a specific treatment plan. Their decision was to recommend chemotherapy and radiation prior to surgery in an attempt to shrink the tumor and eradicate any cancer cells that might have escaped from the tumor site. Research into preoperative treatment with chemoradiation began at M. D. Anderson in the late 1980s, was refined throughout the 1990s, and is now being adopted worldwide as a standard protocol. Rich had the benefit of an extensively researched treatment plan, followed by advanced surgical techniques performed by Raphael Pollock, M.D., a preeminent surgeon with many years of experience treating soft tissue sarcomas.
Rich, now 38, is back at work and is busy raising his two young children with his wife, Kathy, traveling and playing golf. He's grateful every day for what research at M. D. Anderson meant to him personally. Together, he and Kathy are advancing cancer research efforts by planning and hosting fundraising events to support soft tissue sarcoma research at M. D. Anderson. They know that the job is not done, and they are doing something about it.