Kelly has had a recurrence of an abdominal mass, an abdominal tumor that's a very rare
form of cancer, and uniformly these patients who have this kind of recurrence, it's uniformly fatal.
Kelly is an eight-year-old female that had an abdominal tumor, a rare form of a type of
sarcoma that affects the abdomen. She was treated and then about a year after she finished treatment
she had a recurrence. So because she's had this recurrence and because we can't treat her optimally
because she's already had a lot of radiation, what we're going to do is we're going to give
chemotherapy directly into the abdomen which is where the tumor is located. We've brought in Dr.
Hayes Jordan who's a pediatric surgical oncologist from MD Anderson and Dr. Kathy Byrne White who's
the chief of surgery here at Miami Children's. So this is novel, we're going to be the first
institution outside of MD Anderson who's doing this procedure, but my hope is that she'll be a survivor.
Well HyPEC is a fancy name for delivering hot chemotherapy into the abdominal cavity
for tumors that traditionally are very rare and unfortunately are quite extensive.
The procedure entails a surgical procedure in that we go in, we take out all of the disease
that we see and that can take a number of hours. Then we deliver the chemotherapy through some
plastic tubes into the abdomen and it essentially washes over all the surfaces of all the organs
to address any cells that we can't see. We hope that what that does is prevent the cancer from
coming back in the future. Kelly had a lot of treatment and she's a terrific child but she
was at the end of routine therapy, what that could offer. She's had radiation, she's had chemotherapy
and yet she still had disease. Two months ago we gathered the people that we needed,
perfusionists, anesthesia, nurses, technicians, the oncology doctors, surgeons and it's been a
long process and today is a culmination of that incredible period of preparation.
We're proud to be celebrating one more year with my daughter. First of all, thank God for everything,
thank God for all the doctors that have operated for her to be living for many more years.
I'm very grateful for all the services that Miami Children and my daughter have done.
She's always been a very happy girl, very happy. Despite her illness, she never gives up. She's always
happy. It was the first time that she was going to be here in Miami and I hope that as well as
her, we can make her a lot more children so that her parents can enjoy it with their children.
She's been out of the hospital for a couple months. She's eating, she's gaining weight,
thriving, no complications from the procedure. She's doing what a normal child her age should be doing.
She's doing very well. I am so proud to lead such a fine team that is not only very interested in
innovations but also that put their complete heart at bringing procedures like this to
perpetuate hope and healing to Kelly and to other patients like her.
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