A Michigan man who was given one year to live after being diagnosed with fatal pancreatic cancer is still alive nearly four years later thanks to a “miracle” drug combination.
Matthew Rosenblum was just 32 years old in January 2021 when he realized he had lost weight and his stools had turned bone-white.
“At first I thought I had a hangover. “I had a few beers the night before, so I drank some Gatorade and lay in bed, but the urine didn’t get any clearer,” Mr. Rosenblum said. The patient’s history.
The former doctoral candidate was diagnosed with the common digestive disease Crohn’s disease at age 25, which causes inflammation in the colon.
Rosenblum assumed his symptoms were a result of the illness, as gastrointestinal upset was “par for the course for me.”
However, within a few days the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet began to itch, which he described as “probably the worst” symptom. “I’ve never felt anything like that before and those are hard places to scratch,” she said.
Matthew Rosenblum, 35, was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer after doctors ruled him out as “too young” to have the disease. Despite the low odds, he has survived for three years.
Rosenblum has said that while he does not expect to live through the next six years of his chemotherapy treatment, he wants other patients to know that “you are not a statistic.”
“After a whole night of itching, I put my hands and feet in the bathtub with hot water to numb the sensation.”
He visited the hospital where emergency doctors told Mr. Rosenblum that his blood was high in bilirubin, a byproduct of the breakdown of red blood cells that influences the color of stool.
High levels may indicate a blockage in the bile duct, a tube-shaped structure that connects the liver to the small intestine.
Ultrasounds revealed a narrowing of this tube, which doctors attempted to stretch with a stent.
Rosenblum said, “There was no sense of urgency…they didn’t think this was a scary thing.”
Doctors removed the stent a few months later, but Mr. Rosenblum’s symptoms returned. His gastroenterologist said, “I don’t know what’s going on, but you sure don’t have cancer.”
“If you have cancer, I will turn in my grave.”
However, just two hours later, Mr. Rosenblum’s results showed a tumor in a part of the abdomen called the ampulla of Vater, a small opening where the pancreatic and bile ducts meet.
Rosenblum had stage four pancreatic cancer, the third deadliest form of the disease in the United States.
It has been called a “silent killer” as patients rarely suffer symptoms before it has spread to other areas of the body, where it is incurable.
In about 80 percent of cases, the disease is diagnosed at an advanced stage, when the chances of surviving more than five years are reduced to three percent.
The National Cancer Institute estimates that just over 44 percent of pancreatic cancer patients survive more than five years if the condition is still located in its original area. It has an average survival rate of 12 percent.
Early signs of pancreatic cancer include jaundice, stomach pain, back pain, weight loss, and floating stools.
Common symptoms include stomach pain, loss of appetite, weight loss, jaundice, dark urine, floating or light-colored stools, fatigue, and itching.
The NCI estimates that 64,000 cases of pancreatic cancer were diagnosed last year, along with more than 50,000 deaths.
Most patients are over 65 and only 1.9 percent are Mr. Rosenblum’s age.
“The most popular narrative around pancreatic cancer is that it is not only very lethal but also very difficult to diagnose,” Mr. Rosenblum said.
‘The pancreas is deep in the body. The early symptoms are very nuanced, can go unnoticed, and can also be misdiagnosed like a host of other things.’
‘When you experience symptoms, the cancer has spread outside the pancreas. I don’t want to say it’s too late, but that’s what conventional wisdom says.
Rosenblum was to undergo a Whipple procedure, also known as a pancreaticoduodenectomy. This involves removing the head of the pancreas, part of the small intestine, part of the bile duct, the gallbladder, and some surrounding lymph nodes.
However, his surgeon said that once they opened him up, they saw that the cancer had spread to other organs, leaving him inoperable.
Instead, he was prescribed a six-month course of a powerful mix of chemotherapy drugs that were “horrible” and “really, really abrasive.”
Rosenblum suffered debilitating nerve damage that prevented him from even getting out of a chair on his own.
Worse still, the medication failed to shrink the tumor.
‘At the time, I wasn’t sure it would be a special case or a miracle. I thought this was it,” Mr. Rosenblum said.
Doctors discovered that Rosenblum had a mutation in her BRCA2 gene, which is associated with several forms of cancer, including breast and pancreatic cancer. This led doctors to believe that targeted therapies could help.
The oncologist told him, “With treatment, you may have one to three good years left, but that’s it.”
Mr. Rosenblum received a combination of the chemotherapy drugs gemcitabine, nab-paclitaxel, and cisplatin (GAP). “My quality of life improved dramatically,” he said.
“When I had the first set of scans, about three months later, some of the spots on my liver had started to disappear.”
‘I didn’t lose my hair. He was six feet tall. He weighed 215 pounds when I was diagnosed and miraculously stayed at a healthy weight, so I’m very grateful for that.’
“At the time, I thought I was still dying sooner rather than later, so I was trying to have fun and that certainly made having fun a lot easier.”
As of March 2022, doctors could not identify any cancer outside of Mr. Rosenblum’s primary tumor. Almost a year later, they were able to perform a successful Whipple surgery and remove most of the cancer.
Rosenblum will undergo scans to evaluate the remaining tumor every three months for the next six years.
However, he acknowledged that, although he has overcome the odds his doctors told him, “the chances of him living those six years are astronomically small.”
“Pancreatic cancer has a remarkably low five-year survival rate. “It’s unlikely you’ll be able to see that long, at least on paper.”
Rosenblum continues to focus on raising awareness and making sure other patients don’t automatically view pancreatic cancer as a death sentence.
“It’s important to remember that you are not a statistic,” he said. ‘I was diagnosed with something I wasn’t supposed to have at my age. It was very unlikely. It was supposed to kill me and I didn’t die, so in a sense I beat the odds not once, but twice.
“Sometimes things get worse before they get better and that’s no reason to get discouraged.”
‘Have a drink, eat the cheeseburger and live your life as long as you can. That’s how I lived. Take your health seriously, but also take care of yourself wherever you are.’