No Treatment Options Left

Book excerpt: After facing the pain and turmoil of losing his left leg to a rare bone cancer called chondrosarcoma, Mike Snyder and his family thought their cancer battle was over. But their triumph would be short-lived. The cancer kept coming back even after the treatments offered by his doctors. After several futile surgical attempts to remove the cancer, doctors found it had metastasized to Mike's lungs. They gave him less than five years to live and recommended hospice-type palliative care to keep him comfortable. Unwilling to accept his doctors' diagnosis, Mike and his family began researching clinical drug trials in hopes of finding something that would stop the cancer and save Mike's life. Finding the right treatment through clinical trials is hard enough with more conventional cancers. But chondrosarcoma accounts for only 250 of the approximately 1.6 million new cases of cancer diagnosed each year; less than one-one thousandth of one percent. Mike and his family knew the statistical odds were against them. But they knew they had to try. For Mike, there were no treatment options left. Here is the story of their journey.