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After getting mammograms on a regular basis for years, Traci Nave skipped them in 2019 and most of 2020, during the pandemic, when many people put off going into doctors’ offices. Then, last December, she scheduled a mammogram. After additional testing, the results confirmed that she had Stage 3 breast cancer.
Nave acted quickly, and she’s now cancer-free. “Don’t miss those checkups,” she says, “even if you don’t feel anything.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by Dr. Kate Appleton, a breast radiologist at SSM Health DePaul Hospital. “If we lengthen the interval of screening, we very quickly start losing the benefit of screening,” she says. “Because we are losing that opportunity to find that cancer when it’s still curable.”
In addition to scheduling regular mammograms, it’s important to screen for other types of cancer, such as cervical, prostate, colon, and lung cancer, says Dr. Jason Edwards, medical director of radiation oncology at St. Luke’s Hospital.
At this point in the pandemic, Appleton encourages patients to resume preventative care. “We have enough experience now navigating the protocols for safety,” she says. “The downside of missing your mammogram is bigger than coming in for your screening mammogram.”
Other strides in cancer treatment are being made across the region as well.
Proton Therapy—Past, Present & Future: In 2013, Siteman Cancer Center’s S. Lee Kling Proton Therapy Center became the first provider in the region to offer proton therapy, a highly precise form of radiation therapy. In June 2020, Siteman began offering second-generation proton therapy, known as pencil-beam scanning. Work is now underway to offer the latest, third-generation proton therapy, FLASH proton therapy.
The Battle Against Brain Tumors: Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital recently brought together experts from a range of practice areas to create Siteman's Brain Tumor Center, which can approach brain tumors from myriad angles. It will be housed at the forthcoming 11-story, 609,000-square-foot neuroscience building, the school’s largest project yet.
More Mercy Offerings: A new proton therapy center, one of just 37 such centers in the nation, is also slated to open at Mercy’s David C. Pratt Cancer Center, near Mercy Hospital–St. Louis. And in South County, in just its first year, the $54 million David M. Sindelar Cancer Center at Mercy Hospital South is seeing patient volumes that its administration expected to see in its third year, and it has added more specialists.
