The losing battle Lee Atwater fought with brain cancer should not be taken as evidence that the disease is always so quickly terminal, a University of Maryland expert says.
Mr. Atwater, who was general chairman of the Republican National Committee, was diagnosed last March and died Friday at age 40.
According to Dr. Richard Kaplan, head of neuro-oncology at the University of Maryland Medical Center, modern methods of treatment have led to "long-term" survival for some patients in the young-adult age group.
"There really can be people who live five and 10 years after malignant glioma [the kind of tumor Mr. Atwater had]," he says. "Unfortunately, it is not the majority, but it gives us the feeling that if we hone our techniques and develop new techniques, we may increase the number of young survivors and may be able to get some survivors among older patients, too."
Survival time depends greatly on the specific type and grade of malignant tumor, with the shortest survival time expected for cases such as Mr. Atwater's.
His tumor was described by one of his doctors, Dr. Paul L. Kornblith, as "very, very aggressive" and "at the extreme end of malignancy."
Life expectancy also depends on the condition of the patient, according to Dr. Stuart Grossman, director of neuro-oncology at the Johns Hopkins Cancer Center.
"Some patients do not do well, and some do very well. We have some patients who have done much better than expected," he says.
Mr. Atwater's tumor, one of several known as "astrocytomas" because of their star-shaped cells, was of a type that develops in the brain's supportive, or "glial" tissue, rather than in the neurons that govern thought, speech, movement, perception and emotion. Glial tumors, known as "gliomas," are the most common kind of brain cancer, and astrocytomas are the most common kind of glioma.
Astrocytomas are also the most difficult type to treat; they're usually invasive, with roots and edges that infiltrate other brain tissue. "These tumors are virtually never completely excised," Dr. Grossman says.
With any kind of brain tumor, the first symptoms might be blackouts or seizures. Or the person might have problems with movement,speech or memory.
"They might not be able to move an arm or leg, or they're not thinking the way they usually do, or they're very sleepy, or have severe headaches with nausea and vomiting," Dr. Grossman says.
