Northwestern Memorial News Blog

There aren't enough early phase clinical studies of new anti-cancer approaches in Chicago, forcing patients with hard-to-treat cancers to travel around the country hunting for them.

In the early spring of 2004, 21-year old Chris Steele began to experience headaches and blurred vision. An MRI revealed a skull base lesion (beneath his skull but not in his brain) which extended from his right sinus back behind his right ear. A local neurosurgeon referred Chris to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where a biopsy revealed that the lesion was an angiosarcoma, which is a malignant and often aggressive type of cancer. After a medical team ruled out surgical treatment, Chris began chemotherapy around the Labor Day weekend of 2004.

Over the next eight months, Chris received numerous courses of chemotherapy and experienced most of the difficult side effects of this treatment. By May 2005, an MRI had revealed that the lesion had been reduced by 70 percent in most areas and 100 percent in a few areas. Chris had already undergone Gamma Knife Radiosurgery at Northwestern Memorial for a small lesion which had metastasized to his brain stem, and this radiation had completely removed the metastatic lesion.