In June of 1999, Connie Burnett West, at age 54, thought she had a lingering chest cold as some of her co-workers had been sick with viruses, but Connie’s cough just wouldn’t go away. After two months of being sick, Connie saw her doctor and obtained a chest x-ray, which confirmed the surprising and devastating news that she had non-small cell lung cancer. With tumors in both of her lungs, Connie was not eligible for surgery or radiation and was given the grim prognosis of six-to-nine months to live. Because the tumors were in both of her lungs, there were not a lot of treatment options available. She endured two trials using chemotherapy and pills which she said almost killed her, and was then recommended for a gene therapy trial at Mary Crowley Medical Research Center at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. Using what was then a new gene suppressor treatment called GVAX, cancer cells were surgically removed from her lungs and used to create a vaccine that encouraged an immune response in her body to attack the cancer cells. In 2000, Connie received six injections of the cancer gene therapy vaccine over six months. With the gene therapy trial, Connie experienced absolutely no side effects. She didn’t miss a single day of work, and attributes being here today, cancer-free, because of this trial.
Connie Burnett West was the recipient of one of the first successful lung cancer gene therapy trials in 2000. Now, 15 years later, Connie is a living example of the power of cell, gene and immunotherapy treatments for cancer.
When Connie started this odyssey, she didn’t know anything about clinical trials. Now, 15 years later, Connie has participated in nine clinical trials. She remained cancer-free from 2001 until 2014 when she had a small reoccurrence and was treated again with cancer gene therapy and has been cancer-free since September 2014.
Connie is now a grandmother of a very active two year-old and has spent this year traveling in Japan and France. She said she is now happy for the little aches and pains she sometimes experiences that she attributes to getting older, but really has nothing she can complain about. As a patient advocate and on the Institutional Review Board at Mary Crowley Medical Center, Connie helps other patients learn about clinical trials and get the treatment they need. Her doctor that led her first gene therapy clinical trial is Dr. Jack Roth, director of the W.M. Keck Center for Innovative Cancer Therapies at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Austin, and a dedicated member of the ACGT Scientific Advisory Council. Dr. Roth was the principal investigator for the first tumor suppressor gene therapy clinical trial approved by the National Institutes of Health and the FDA, after evidencing feasibility and efficacy in laboratory research. Dr. Roth has also served as head of the Thoracic Oncology section of the Surgery Branch of the National Cancer Institute.
On Connie’s very first day of her first cancer treatment, she read a story about Ernest Hemingway that was in a magazine in the treatment room. A quote from Hemingway stood out to her and she still has this quote in her home today. It read, “You won’t always win, but what is important is to put up a good fight. Never quit, never give up.”
That is Connie’s mantra today and the one piece of advice she gives to anyone fighting cancer. “Never, ever give up. Try everything. If something doesn’t work, try something else. Just don’t give up.”