A program called DREAM, which stands for Double Lung Transplantation and Registration of Limited Lung Malignancies, has given a D.C. resident a chance to fight lung cancer.
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New cancer treatment gives stage 4 DC patient a second chance
David Peterson was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2019 after seeking treatment for a persistent cough.
When he was a smoker, a tumor the size of a softball growing in his lung was the result of a gene mutation—a “luck of the draw,” as he described it.
Surgeons removed the cancerous lobe, but the cancer returned. He received chemotherapy and immunotherapy at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital. The cancer came back again, more aggressively.
By mid-2023, Peterson had suffered a pulmonary embolism, was on home oxygen and, by his own account, had about two to three months to live. According to him, he was deceiving himself, but not the cancer.
“I’m going to get through this no matter what,” Peterson said of his mindset at the time. “But I wasn’t. I was going downhill.”
He was also running out of options.
“I went through the most extreme ordeal, just grasping at straws,” Peterson said.
In a final attempt, he traveled to Chicago in 2023 to undergo a double lung transplant at Northwestern Medicine, the only hospital in the country that performs the procedure on patients like Peterson.
The program Peterson participated in is called DREAM, which stands for Dual Lung Transplant Registry Targeting Limited Lung Malignancies.
Northwestern Medicine performed its first surgery of 2021.
“At the time, these patients were so hopeless that they just dreamed for a while longer,” said Dr. Ankit Bharat, executive director of Northwestern Medicine’s Canning Thoracic Institute.
David Peterson of D.C. told WTOP that a double lung transplant cleared his lung cancer and saved his life. (Courtesy of Northwestern Medicine)
Courtesy of Northwestern Medicine
In a last-ditch effort, David Peterson traveled to Chicago to undergo a double lung transplant at Northwestern Medicine, the only hospital in the country that performs the procedure for patients like him. (Courtesy of Northwestern Medicine)
Courtesy of Northwestern Medicine
Northwestern is the only program in the country to perform double lung transplants for patients with stage 4 lung cancer. (Courtesy of Northwestern Medicine)
Courtesy of Northwestern Medicine
David Peterson said the surgery saved and changed his life. (Courtesy of Northwestern Medicine)
Courtesy of Northwestern Medicine
The concept grew out of Northwestern’s work during the COVID era. The hospital was one of the first in the country to perform lung transplants on patients whose lungs were destroyed by the virus.
In these cases, surgeons had to remove severely infected lungs while preventing dangerous bacteria from spreading into the bloodstream. Bharat said the lessons learned have had a direct impact on lung cancer cases.
“We thought that at least in a cohort of patients whose disease was limited to the lungs, we could carefully remove those cancerous lungs and insert new ones,” Bharat said.
The study, published Wednesday in JAMA, lays out the hard numbers in favor of this approach. Among the 17 patients with stage 4 lung cancer who were eligible for and received a transplant, the one-year survival rate was 100 percent, Bharat said. Among the 81 patients who met criteria but did not receive transplantation, the 1-year survival rate was approximately 40%.
“There really is no treatment that can increase one-year survival by 60 percentage points,” Bharat said. “There is literally nothing in the lung cancer space.”
The study also found that transplant outcomes for patients with lung cancer were comparable to those for patients who received transplants for other reasons. Bharat said the results put an end to long-standing concerns about whether providing lungs to cancer patients is justified when donor organs are in short supply.
Lung transplants are among the most complex surgeries performed anywhere, Bharat said, noting that only about 3,500 were performed last year, compared with more than 50,000 kidney transplants.
Lung transplants also carry a higher risk of rejection, in part because they are the only organs that are directly exposed to the environment through every breath we take.
Adding to the challenge for cancer patients is the requirement that they remain in the Chicago area for a year after surgery so they can be monitored. Insurance approval is also a barrier.
Peterson went through it all and said it changed his life. He said that over the course of 15 years it became increasingly difficult for him to breathe, and he assumed it was because he smoked.
Now, “I can breathe incredibly well,” he said. – It sounds funny.
“When I inhale, I can inhale. Personally, I’m amazed at how deep I can inhale, and it’s an amazing feeling.”
Since the surgery, Peterson said he has traveled to Australia, skied in Utah, visited Budapest and attended his daughter’s college graduation.
And the advice he gives to others in the same situation as himself: “Northwestern. Get there as quickly as possible,” he said. “Don’t party and try to find alternatives when you’re so close to certain death.”
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