Recent media reports have begun to shed more
light on Steve Jobs' medical condition
and the treatment he's believed to have
sought overseas.
According to Fortune magazine, the co-founder and chief executive
of Apple, Inc, who is currently on medical leave, flew to Switzerland in 2009 to receive
a treatment for neuroendocrine cancer that
isn't yet approved in the U.S. The Wall
Street Journal reported Jobs also had a liver transplant that year.
Fortune said it learned about the unpublicized
trip to Switzerland from former Apple director
Jerry York, who died in 2010.
In 2004, doctors found that Jobs had a pancreatic
neuroendocrine islet cell tumor, which is
very different from the more well-known pancreatic cancer that took the life of actor Patrick Swayze in 2009.
"They are slower-growing tumors than
typical pancreatic cancers. The survival
rate for more typical cancers is much lower,"
said Dr. Alejandro Ayala, associate clinical
professor of medicine at the University of
Miami's Miller School of Medicine.
Jobs' Swiss Treatment Experimental and
Effective
Experts say the treatment Jobs underwent
is an experimental procedure called peptide
receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT). It
involves delivering radiation to tumor cells
by attaching one of two radioactive isotopes
to a drug that mimics somatostatin, the hormone
that regulates the entire endocrine system
and the secretion of other hormones.
Specialists who treat neuroendocrine cancers
say PRRT is very effective, but because the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration hasn't
yet approved it, patients who want the treatment
typically head to Europe for it.
"It shrinks tumors in about a third
of cases significantly, and it lasts on average
about two to three years," said Strosberg.
"Even though you get tumor shrinkage,
you mostly get disease progression that stabilizes,"
said Dr. Thomas O'Dorisio, professor
of medicine at the University of Iowa in
Iowa City.
Experts believe the FDA will eventually approve
PRRT.
"The data are coming out slowly. There's
never been a phase 3 clinical trial, and
that's why it's not okayed yet,"
said O'Dorisio.
"It's a new, experimental treatment,
and it has to go through the same approval
process as all drugs," said Ayala.
PRRT Treatment Also Costly
A company called Excel Diagnostics Imaging
Clinics, based out of Houston, Tex., was
approved by the FDA to begin an investigational
new drug trial for PRRT. However, O'Dorisio
said it's cheaper to get the therapy
at University Hospital of Basel in Switzerland,
where Jobs is believed to have received his.
"It's $4,200 per treatment at Basel,"
said O'Dorisio. He said patients generally
receive four treatments. He estimates the
cost of treatment in Texas at $15,000 per
treatment, which may or may not be covered
by health insurance. ....
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