Latest news with #EmmaDimery
Daily Mail
07-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE I was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer at 23 but beat odds... how YOU can spot disease before it's too late
When Emma Dimery was told she had terminal colon cancer at 23, her life was turned upside down. She had just graduated art college and had a budding career ahead of her - then she was given a diagnosis that meant the odds were against her even making it to her 30th birthday. 'At first the gravity of it all didn't really sink in, I was more concerned with how it would affect my social or dating life,' she told 'It took me more than a year to understand that this will be a part of my life forever.' But miraculously, 12 years on, she is happy and thriving thanks to a clinical trial which helped save her life after numerous round of unsuccessful chemotherapy and radiation treatments. The artist and illustrator from Minnesota is now sharing her story in a bid to give others hope and to also raise awareness around the signs of colon cancer so it can be caught sooner. She said that the first symptoms she should have paid more attention to in hindsight were fatigue, weakness, and intense stomach cramps which progressively worsened. However, it was only during an annual physical that Emma realized there was something seriously wrong with her health. She revealed: 'I just thought I was burning the candle at both ends. I went to my yearly physical and thought nothing of it when they took blood. 'When I got home, I fell asleep for almost 48 hours, and then woke to my mom calling me repeatedly from outside of my apartment. 'She was in a real panic saying my doctor couldn't get hold of me and I needed to go to the ER immediately. 'From there, after an array of tests, a colonoscopy revealed I had advanced colon cancer. I couldn't believe it.' Emma revealed that in December 2013, doctors found two tumors in her colon, one the size of a softball and the other the size of a golf ball. Medics told her it had progressed into stage 4 colon cancer and a treatment plan was immediately drawn up. Emma's story comes amid an explosion in 'early onset' cancers in the US. By 2019 the rates in young people were 79 percent higher compared to in 1990. The five-year survival rate for colon cancer is 64 percent, but that drops to 13 percent if the cancer has spread, which commonly occurs in early-onset cases because symptoms are often not present or are misdiagnosed until the cancer has spread throughout the body. Symptoms include changes in bathroom habits, blood in stool, weakness, fatigue, nausea, loss of appetite, a lump in the abdomen or rectum, diarrhea, abdominal cramping, constipation and vomiting. Blood tests revealed that Emma also had a low red blood cell count. The American Cancer Society explains that sometimes blood can be seen in the stool or make it look darker, but often the stool looks normal. 'But over time, the blood loss can build up and can lead to low red blood cell counts.' After being diagnosed, Emma underwent surgery to remove the most affected part of her colon, and then she had chemotherapy for around a year, with breaks in between each round. Despite these interventions, the cancer continued to spread and Emma had to undergo a partial hysterectomy to removed her uterus in 2016 after the disease hit tissues surrounding her reproductive system. From there, she kept going with chemotherapy and radiation therapies and she also started immunotherapy. This treatment approach harnesses the body's own immune system to fight cancer. Instead of directly targeting cancer cells, immunotherapy aims to boost or modify the immune system to recognize and attack them more effectively. This treatment can be administered in various ways, including intravenously, through injections and in pill form. But after a short time experimenting with immunotherapy, Emma's doctor told her about a clinical trial out of the University of Minnesota and this is what she deems a 'game changer'. In the 2020 trial, led by Dr Emil Lou, cancer cells were retrieved from Emma and altered in a lab using pioneering gene editing technology. These altered cells, which have a better defense against tumors, were then reintroduced to Emma's body via infusion. Amazingly, it took just one treatment to see results and she was declared cancer-free two months later. Dr Lou deemed Emma's response to the experimental trial - which saw 12 participants enroll - as 'remarkable'. Among the other trial participants, the cancer specialist revealed that several individuals experienced 'stabilization of their disease', which indicated that their tumors had stopped growing. His team are now looking to build on the success of the gene editing technology and to see how it could be rolled out on a larger scale. Touching on what her biggest sources of strength have been during her cancer battle, Emma told this website: 'By far my biggest source of strength has been my amazing family and friends. 'My mom, Barbara and big sister, Anne and myself had dubbed ourselves Team Weston (our family name before marriage). 'I met my husband, Andrew about a year and a half after being diagnosed, and he has been steadfastly by my side through everything and I am so, so lucky to have them!' Research indicates a link between the consumption of red meat and ultra-processed foods and an increased risk of colon cancer. Emma says since her diagnosis, she has made a conscious effort to cut these from her diet and 'keep in tune' with her body. Food aside, the brunette says another change triggered by her cancer is her mindset. She explains: 'Dealing with cancer for more than a decade has taught me what's really important in life, to not take very good day for granted, and to realize how important it is not only be active within this ever growing community of young cancer patients, but to give back however you can. 'In some ways I feel like I'm behind my peers in terms of career and family life, but in other ways, I feel more mature and steadfast.' Offering advice to others in terms of being alert to cancer, Emma concludes: 'Knowing one's family background or history of cancer is pretty critical. 'If you have a lot of cancer in your family, like I do, I advise paying close attention to your body and getting screened and tested as soon as or as regularly as you can. 'Colon cancer doesn't necessarily show a lot of symptoms until it is somewhat advanced - so for young people, it's harder to detect if something is wrong.'
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Terminal colon cancer patient saved by breakthrough treatment
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways Two years ago, Emma Dimery was told her stage 4 colon cancer was incurable. Today, she is healthy and cancer-free — and she says a last-resort clinical trial saved her life. Dimery, who lives in Minnesota, was just 23 when she was diagnosed with colon cancer, which has been rising sharply among teens and young adults in recent years. After experiencing abdominal pain and having abnormal blood work, Dimery underwent a colonoscopy, which revealed a "softball-sized" tumor and another "golf ball-sized" one, she told Fox News Digital. Alternative Cancer Treatment Could Replace Chemo And Surgery, Study Suggests Despite multiple surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation and some combination therapies, Dimery's treatment-resistant cancer spread throughout her body over the years, leading to what she described as a "low point." Emma Dimery is shown during the first phase of the clinical trial. "I was basically treading water, doing immunotherapy every other week for probably four years or so," she told Fox News Digital during an on-camera interview, adding that she was "out of options." (See the video at the top of the article.) Read On The Fox News App "I had been waiting for a clinical trial," recalled Dimery, now 35. "I had exhausted every other standard of treatment, and even some not-so-standard ones." When Dimery heard about a new trial at the University of Minnesota, she said it "wasn't a tough decision." "I was on board pretty much from day one," she said. The trial, led by Dr. Emil Lou, tested an experimental genetic therapy that the researcher described as the "next frontier of immunotherapy." Woman Says Dog Detected Her Breast Cancer Before Doctors Did: 'He's Known This Whole Time' While most immunotherapies have targets that are on the outside of cells, this one targeted the insides of cells. "Some of the targets inside the cell are preventing the immune system from activating against the cancer," Lou, a medical oncologist and scientist who had previously treated Dimery, told Fox News Digital in an on-camera interview. "It's kind of like a shield that protects the cancer cell from the body's immune system." In 2023, Emma Dimery is pictured in the hospital with her care exam during the clinical trial with her care team. In the trial, cancer cells were retrieved from the participants, then were altered in a lab using CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology, which Lou described as "genetic scissors." The process programmed the cells to have a more effective anti-tumor response. The altered cells were then reintroduced into the patients' bodies via infusion. "They trained the cells to be able to fight my cancer specifically when they were reintroduced into my body," Dimery noted. It was a long process that was grueling at times, she shared, with some challenging side effects. "You just get through it and try to focus on the good," Dimery said. "And I had a lot of good around me. I had really amazing support team." A total of 12 patients participated in the study — but Dimery had by far the best results. The vast majority of advanced colorectal cancers are not considered to be curable, Lou confirmed to Fox News Digital. "The chemotherapies or whatever other treatments we have available, while there are a number of them, are palliative — meaning they don't have the capability to induce a cure in patients with metastatic stage 4 colorectal cancers," he said. "Emma was in that category until she came onto our trial." Emma Dimery and her husband Andrew celebrate after buying a home right after she was released from the hospital after the trial in 2023. Lou described Dimery's response to the experimental immunotherapy as "remarkable." After just one infusion of the engineered cells, she was pronounced cancer-free — an outcome that is "almost unheard-of" with advanced colorectal cancer. "We term this in oncology as a 'clinical complete response,' which is something that you see in 10% or less of all patients," Lou said. "And it's less than 10% for stage 4 colorectal cancers." Woman Says Chatgpt Saved Her Life By Helping Detect Cancer, Which Doctors Missed "What we saw in Emma was a magnificent and unprecedented level of response, going from a metastatic stage for an otherwise incurable cancer … where now we don't see any cancer." Two years after the trial, Dimery said she's doing "really well." Emma Dimery is pictured with her sister, Anne Johnson, during a 2017 hospital stay. "The trial worked almost immediately — and I've had no evidence of disease since," she told Fox News Digital. While she's hesitant to use "the C-word," or "cure," she said the trial has changed the way she thinks of cancer. "Until now, the best I could hope for was remission to the point of no evidence of disease … and had to accept that it could rear its head again at any point, even if they can't detect it on a scan," Dimery said. "All of my scans have just been coming back better and better." "You just get through it and try to focus on the good," Dimery said in an on-camera interview with Fox News Digital. "And I had a lot of good around me. I had really amazing support team." Dimery's story was unveiled last week at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in Chicago. "Emma is exceptional in many ways, but what we learned from her case, we hope to replicate and decipher how we can achieve this on a more consistent basis across the board for more patients like her," Lou added. Studies have shown that in 2023, one in 10 colorectal cancer diagnoses were considered early-onset, or affecting patients under 50 years of age. The American College of Surgeons predicts that early-onset cases will double by 2030. Emma Dimery is pictured in 2013, at just 23 years, after receiving her initial cancer diagnosis. "Colorectal cancer remains one of the few cancers for which we have validated screening tools," Lou noted. Those include blood-based tests, stool-based tests and colonoscopies. In 2018, the American Cancer Society changed its colorectal screening recommendation from age 50 to age 45. Other medical organizations followed suit in ensuing years. Even so, Lou said he is seeing patients diagnosed well ahead of the age 45 benchmark. "I'm seeing something in the last five or six years that I really did not see earlier in my career — teenagers, people in their 20s, 30s and 40s," he shared. "Just last week, I saw someone in their early 40s with widely metastatic stage 4 colorectal cancer." Click Here To Sign Up For Our Health Newsletter What's "striking and alarming," Lou said, is that about half of the cases of colorectal cancer are diagnosed at stage 4. "A lot of times, they don't even have symptoms, or they have symptoms that were construed as something else." The more people who are aware, the better. I think it's really important to not panic, but to stay informed and connected to the community," said Emma Dimery, pictured in 2021 during an Immunotherapy treatment. Dimery said she is encouraged by early-onset colon cancer coming to the "forefront of public consciousness." The more people who are aware, the better. I think it's really important to not panic, but to stay informed and connected to the community." For more Health articles, visit Genetic testing is also important to gauge the availability of clinical trials, she noted. "That can tell you a lot about your individual type of cancer," Dimery said. "Luckily for me, I had just the right kind of cancer for this treatment." Original article source: Terminal colon cancer patient saved by breakthrough treatment
