When someone is diagnosed with cancer, it can be an overwhelming experience. The experienced team of physicians and nurses at Memorial Hermann Cancer Centers take pride in assisting patients in the transition from diagnosis to treatment and beyond. As advocates for the patient and their ultimate recovery and healing, see how Memorial Hermann Cancer Centers have made a difference in these cancer patient's lives.
November 5, 2018
Sonya Lira has a strong family history of multiple cancers, but when she was tested for genetic mutations that might be linked to her breast cancer, there were none. “We did comprehensive genetic testing involving a complete gene sequencing of her DNA, testing for all known mutations,&rdquo...
July 17, 2018
Angel Marie Fields was out with friends when she noticed that her chest felt tight and heavy. She felt a lump but did not give it much attention. After all, she was only 26. When she checked it again later, it felt like one big lump. She made an appointment with her ob-gyn, Hany Ahmed, MD, w...
July 17, 2018
In summer of 2017, Beck had what he thought was a canker sore that was not healing. His dentist examined it and advised him to see a specialist for a biopsy if it didn’t heal in a couple of weeks. After a biopsy that fall, he learned he had stage 2 carcinoma of the tongue and was referred t...
January 31, 2018
When Dr. Adan Rios was diagnosed with cancer, his physician, Dr. Karni, knew it was deeply personal. One morning, Adan woke up with the left side of his neck completely swollen and assumed he had developed a lymphoma. A biopsy revealed that it was sqaumous cell cancer. The next steps were imaging...
August 10, 2017
Robert visited Farzaneh Banki, M.D., director of the Esophageal Disease Center at Memorial Hermann Southeast Hospital and professor of surgery at the McGovern Medical School, part of UTHealth in Houston.
A lifelong machinist, Robert remembers being nervous because the surgery to treat his ...
July 19, 2017
Leigh Rozelle found the lump purely by accident, just three days before Christmas. As she crossed her arms, she felt a golf ball-size knot on the outer side of her left breast. My family practitioner was able to squeeze me into her schedule the very next day,” says Rozelle, who is 38. “When she e...
June 27, 2017
Every other month, Carlos Velázquez and his wife, Mónica Costa, make the 12,500-mile round trip between their home in Asunción, Paraguay, and Houston, Texas, where Velázquez is undergoing an innovative treatment for glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). The Paraguayan couple and their Texas Medical Cent...
April 4, 2017
Eyvette Lopez Hetherington was an unlikely candidate for colon cancer. The 44-year-old Houston attorney and mother of two was seemingly healthy and fit, underwent annual physicals and had no family history of colon cancer. Yet, the signs were there. As a young lawyer in her 20s, Hetherington bega...
February 23, 2015
Jafri sent the slides to a specialist, who confirmed small cell lung cancer, a form that shares common neuro-endocrine features with carcinoid cancer, but tends to be extremely aggressive.
For Mike Autrey, the treatment began with 12 weeks of chemotherapy given along with radiation to the ...
November 30, 2012
In early 2010, Marquita Spell knew something wasn’t right. She was beginning to have difficulty swallowing and getting food down was becoming increasingly painful. “The discomfort was unlike anything I had ever experienced before,” Marquita explained. “I never had issues w...
Mackenzie Wysong’s positive attitude and cheery outlook make the difference in how she approaches life and its challenges.
Mackenzie had only been living in Houston a little more than a year when she received a breast cancer diagnosis in 2013.
Mackenzie made up her mind to hav...
Thanks to a referral to Ron Karni, MD, who routinely does surgery for oropharyngeal cancers using transoral robotic surgery with a CO2 laser, Lentola avoided the toxic treatments, the effects of which are particularly pronounced in head and neck cancer patients.
"By combining the laser and...