First Lady Jill Biden: ‘Your work will change and save lives’

A listening session with the First Lady

Biden sat down with patients, caregivers and other community members, as well as Lynch, holder of the Raisbeck Endowed Chair, and other researchers from the Fred Hutch/University of Washington/Seattle Children’s Cancer Consortium, for a listening session, livestreamed to more than a thousand Fred Hutch employees.

Medical oncologist Veena Shankaran, MD, a cancer outcomes researcher and co-director of the  Hutchinson Institute for Cancer Outcomes Research, HICOR, was quick to praise President Biden’s plan to ban medical debt from credit reports, which was also announced Friday.

HICOR’s research has shown around 3% of cancer patients go bankrupt and those who file for bankruptcy die at significantly higher rates.

“Financial stress impacts not only a patient’s quality of life, but also on how long they might survive,” Shankaran said. “Removing medical debt from credit reports bodes well for improving this burden and making sure cancer survivors are financially successful in the future. Financial toxicity probably affects, on some level, most of the patients we see. Our goal is to make sure everyone has a fighting chance.”

Seattle Children’s pediatric hematologist-oncologist and Director of the Fred Hutch Survivorship Program Scott Baker, MD, touted cancer’s ever-growing survival rates but said young cancer patients continue to face harsh side effects and aftereffects, even years after treatment.

“There are nearly 20 million cancer survivors in the U.S. and that number continues to climb due to advancements in new therapies,” he said. “But the quality of life of those survivors can be significantly impacted by cancer and treatment, and those who are cured are at risk for cardiovascular disease, second cancers and other health issues.”

Baker and researchers at multiple cancer centers are participating in a large National Cancer Institute study incorporating mobile technology, wearable devices, telehealth and social media to engage with young survivors, he said, “who often aren’t provided the recommended follow-up care after their cancer treatment ends.”

Health disparities and hard truths

Rachel Yung, MD, a breast medical oncologist and director of the Breast and Ovarian Cancer Prevention and Women’s Wellness Clinic at Fred Hutch, spoke about the “amazing developments” she’s seen in the arena of less-toxic treatments.

But she also decried breast cancer’s health disparities and hard truths.

“We must face the fact that Black and African American women have a 40% higher breast cancer mortality rate than white women,” she said.

Yung also pointed out the ongoing efforts of researchers and clinicians to reduce the harsh side effects — and long-term effects — of cancer treatments.

“We want to reduce the toxicity of treatment so survivors can live the best life possible,” she said.

Finally, Douglas Hawkins, MD, chair of the Children’s Oncology Group at Seattle Children’s and a native of Wilmington, Delaware, like the President, spoke about the unique challenges that childhood cancer survivors face after treatment, including secondary cancers driven by therapies given to them as kids.

“I’m here to speak for the children,” he said. “Cancer is uncommon in people under 20, but that’s still around 15,000 adolescents and children with cancer every year. Clinical trials have increased the survival rate — the five-year rate exceeds 85% now — but progress is uneven. Also, I don’t think a 5-year survival should be the goal of cancer treatment for a 3-year-old or a 13-year-old or a 23-year-old.”

Cancer Consortium researchers, he said, are “working hard to deliver equitable access to treatment for all children with fewer side effects. That’s the vision of the future I think we all share.”

Leah Marcoe, a Seattle area breast cancer survivor and kindergarten teacher, also joined the listening session, talking about her own treatment — and how she was able to pause it — in order to try to get pregnant.

“I now have an 11-week-old son at home,” she said. “He’s a complete miracle. There’s still treatment in my future, but I’m determined to finish it and be cancer-free.”

A new initiative to end metastasis

Biden’s visit kicked off with a tour of the Ghajar Lab, home base for Fred Hutch’s new Center for Metastasis Research Excellence, or MET-X. Founding director Ghajar, who holds the Peter S. Lefkarites Memorial Endowed Chair, described MET-X’s transformative “all-hands-on-deck” approach, walking the first lady through some of his lab’s recent findings.

“Tumors in the breast rarely kill people, but when it metastasizes and spreads to other organs, it’s almost uniformly lethal,” Ghajar explained. “Thirty percent of all breast cancer journeys end this way and we still don’t know who will recur or when.”

MET-X’s mission, he said, is to target the seeds of metastasis — breast tumor cells — which can lie dormant throughout the body, even after treatment. He and his colleagues research how these seeds spread, and how they survive, resist therapy and evade our body’s natural immune response.

“We’re resolved to not only understand how to stop breast cancer cells from metastasizing, but how to cure metastases for all of the patients who walk into the clinic and are diagnosed with stage 4 cancer,” he said. “It’s why we launched MET-X.”

Moving forward with hope

Biden, who lost her son Beau to brain cancer, acknowledged the difficult challenges of trying to treat — and cure — an unforgiving disease, one that often leaves survivors looking over their shoulder.

“With research and the right care for survivors, we can mitigate those side effects and help ease those fears. That’s what’s happening right here at Fred Hutch,” she said. “Researchers here are working to prevent breast cancer from coming back and metastasizing in survivors, and clinicians are supporting survivors with quality care designed to meet their unique needs.

“A lot of this is heartbreaking in many ways, but we need to end with a message of hope,” she said at the end of the listening session. “I look forward to taking your insights and stories back to the White House so others can benefit from your expertise.”