A Charlotte, N.C.-based radiologist, Robyn Stacy Humphries, MD, raised more than $263,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society after participating in a successful clinical trial that led to remission from diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, local CBS affiliate WBTV reports.
Dr. Humphries typically reads patient image results, but in 2011 she found herself reading her own and discovered lymphoma. After two remissions, the cancer came back aggressively in 2016 with a prognosis of six months to live. Dr. Humphries found a clinical trial through her own research for a new treatment called CAR T-cell therapy, a type of immunotherapy that involves modifying a patient's own immune cells to treat their cancer.
Dr. Humphries traveled to Ohio to participate in the clinical trial, a process she described as similar to donating platelets. After eight days, the lymph nodes were gone.
"You could not feel them. ... They were just gone, melted away," she told WBTV.
Since receiving the treatment four years ago, Dr. Humphries has been in remission and raised the money to help expand cancer research.