Veritable ‘amateur radiologist’ helps save her own life
A survivor of advanced cancer who cheated death largely did so by “interpreting” her own diagnostic images on a home computer.
The case of Celine Ryan, an engineer, database programmer and mother of five, was published online Dec. 7 in the New England Journal of Medicine and brought to the general public the next day by the New York Times.
“The new discovery might not have been made—at least, not now—without Ms. Ryan’s persistence,” writes health and medicine reporter Denise Grady. “Researchers twice denied her request to enter [an immunotherapy] clinical trial, saying her tumors were not large enough. But she refused to give up and was finally let in.”
The case has “huge implications,” Carl June, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania, told the Times, adding that the big question now is whether this case is “one in a million or something that can be replicated and built upon.”
He’s referring to the experimental immunotherapy that saved Ryan’s life, not her amateur clinical sleuthing, but the former almost certainly wouldn’t have happened without the latter.
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Dave P. has worked in journalism, marketing and public relations for more than 30 years, frequently concentrating on hospitals, healthcare technology and Catholic communications. He has also specialized in fundraising communications, ghostwriting for CEOs of local, national and global charities, nonprofits and foundations.