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Health CareCommentary

Victor Davis Hanson: Cancer Update, ‘Your Prayers Work, Folks’

Victor Davis Hanson / @VDHanson

Victor Davis Hanson, a senior contributor for The Daily Signal, is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and host of "The Victor Davis Hanson Show." His website, The Blade of Perseus, features columns, lectures, and exclusive content for subscribers. Contact him at [email protected].

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a segment from today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to Hanson’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.

Jack Fowler: Victor was also up at three or four o’clock his time. And he sent a text to me early this morning. It’s wonderful kind of news. Victor, you want to, before we get kicking on the show?

Victor Davis Hanson: Well, how do I put this? I had a—I had it. I hope it’s gone. But it is. They cut it out, along with a lot of lung—but a mucinous adenoma carcinoma is a very strange tumor. But more stranger is the—let me get this straight. I’m not trying to show off knowledge, it’s just that it’s been imprinted my brain.

Fowler: Dr. Hanson.  

Hanson. PhDs are not supposed to refer to themselves as doctor under polite parlance, Jack.

It is KRAS G 12-R mutation, and that’s one in 200 of this rare type. And unfortunately it’s one that is found in the pancreas. So people were very worried that it might have come there or it would go there.

So what they do is they have a new test. They had the grail test. You know, that’s one that people may have known about, and you might want to inquire about everybody. You take it, it finds circulating DNA of any type cancer before it appears in a tumor form. It didn’t work for me because when they found this mass in August, they gave me one of those tests at this longevity center and it was negative.

And they scanned it with an MRI and a CAT, but it was probably malignant at that time. So it didn’t detect that. Otherwise they claim 98% accurate, but it didn’t work for me. But this test was very much different. It takes the tumor’s footprint signature, that mutation I just mentioned, and then I had another bad one, the STK.

Bad in the sense they’re aggressive and they recur more likely and you can’t treat them. So if it comes back, you cannot use really immunotherapy or chemo. So, the only chance you really have is to get it all. The new test called Signa Terra takes the tumor’s actual footprint or sign or fingerprint, and then it takes your blood.

You wait 30 days after surgery. And then if a trace of that tumor’s DNA, and I mean a trace is in your circulating blood, it’ll tell you.

And if it was in there, I would’ve tried, I guess they would’ve used kind of a last desperate attempt at blanket chemo, even though it wouldn’t be targeted. It would have a five to 10% efficacy rate.

And I’m still getting over losing half my blood volume, and anemia and AFib and stuff. So I wasn’t looking forward to that. And if it was negative, that means that you will not have a tumor likely, although the mucinous strain is a little hard to detect, so that’s a problem. But other than that, it says that I can wait and watch, watch and wait.

And that means that every four or five months I’ll take this biopsy test and get a CT. But as I understand it, if you get the initial one after surgery, that’s a good sign. And then each test that you get subsequently that’s negative, statistically the chances go down that it won’t be positive as much.

The literature as I was told was that 40%, for 40% or four out of 10 patients with this type of tumor will have it recur. But unfortunately, the R strain of this tumor means you can’t do much about it. So it becomes more important with the R mutation and STK coke mutation, that if you do get it, you’re in bad shape. It’s not going to be immunotherapy or chemo is going to stop it.

And it usually can come back in the brain or the liver or the pancreas.

I had a very strange dream, and I was kind of floating around and I asked somebody if I was dead or alive, and they said, “I don’t know, but you should wake up.”

And so I woke up and I thought, why not go to the portal of the DNA? But it’s been a month, so it’s kind of been stressful, you know. The test became existential because it determined your entire postop treatment. Either you’re going have chemo or you’re not. And then if it’s positive, you don’t have a good prognosis. If it’s negative, you got a good, a much better chance.

So it was kind of more important in my case because of the inability to treat the tumor, should it reoccur and something said, go to it. And I said, no. Sunday morning, that’s neurotic. And so, I just happened to, and this big red thing said, “Check results.”

And I thought, “Wow, why would it be red?” You know how you get paranoid, overthink things?

Hanson: So I did. And then, they wouldn’t even let you see the results. They said, you must read about, you know, what the results mean.

In other words, don’t go shoot yourself if it’s positive, I guess, or don’t go think that you’re cured if it’s negative.

So I read that, and then if you read that, then you finally get to the results and it said negative. So I was. 3:30-4 A.M, I was very relieved.

Fowler: Good. Well, God bless. And the need for you to endure prophylactic chemo is off the table for at least the time being.

Hanson: I don’t think I would’ve, between you and me, I don’t think I would’ve made it because, I’ve still got a heart problem from the blood loss and the transfusions, and I’m pretty dizzy and you never know.

I am getting better. When I got out of the hospital for the first week, I couldn’t walk over 300 steps, and my wife and I did 7,000 two days in a row.

So I’m getting better. I can’t drive yet, but it’s only been seven weeks. A very good doctor who I consulted—two of them—Just a wonderful man. Robert Cerfolio at NYU. I think he’s one of the best surgeons in the world. Then I had a surgeon at Stanford, a very good surgeon, Dr. Barry, and then a friend had Dr. Inaba at USC, who was wonderful and they all were very supportive and said, “You know, it’s gonna take you a little longer than most people that have a lobectomy, a removal of the big lobe because of the aneurysm you experienced and the bleeding.”Dr. Barry was very skillful to get me right out of ICU and right back in and, you know, reopen and find that thing. I was really bleeding. It’s kind of like Arnold. I was reading about Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Somebody sent me a nice article, not a nice article, but a sad article that he had gone to Cedar Sinai for a new type of corrective surgery of, I think a valve or a defect he had in his heart, and it was just the same thing. It was a great thing. And then all of a sudden, he started a massive bleed, and he almost died, from what I can tell.

That was about four or five years ago. Well, anyway, people don’t wanna hear about that.

Fowler: Yeah. That’s why only millions are praying for you. So, your prayers work, folks.

Hanson: I could feel them. I know that sounds supernatural. But I do believe. I was overwhelmed. We probably have the things that came at Hoover or to our house or on text or phone, probably a thousand people.

As I said before, it’s so moving to see these people who write these beautiful calligraphy. We had two friends, Jay and Jennifer, she wrote the most beautiful calligraphy I’ve ever seen in my life. Four pages. And then I get people who will write and say, “I am 84 years old. I remember so well the Korean War. I’m living alone. Don’t give up hope. Thirteen years ago, I was told that I had six weeks to live and they took out my entire lung. They said I wouldn’t be able to do it. I just hiked the other day at 86.”That was very inspirational. I got so many of those, and I was really did not expect it. I really didn’t. I did not expect any of that.

Fowler: I’ve got a lot of emails. How can I write to Victor? And one lady wrote the other day, I want to write them because she has lovely handwriting, and she liked that you had talked about this. You’re getting notes of beautiful penmanship.

Hanson: Oh, my gosh. I said to my wife, I said, they should start teaching calligraphy again, cursive handwriting. It’s such a beautiful art, and it’s so much more personal than just typing.

My mother was an appellate court judge and died of cancer very early at 64, 65. And my daughter died of cancer. So the appellate court judges, this is a big appellate court in central California. They were very friendly.

And one of the justices, Brad Hill, he hand-delivered to our house a boysenberry pie and this kind of boutique ice cream. And it was just splendid. And then all of a sudden …

Fowler: The good kind of person that shows up in your doorstep.

Hanson: Yes. And then yesterday he came through, and he just dropped it off on the porch.

The same delicious ice cream, but this time, homemade, homemade bakery type chocolate chip cookies and stuff.

Fowler: Yeah, it’s terrific.

Hanson: Yeah, I’m very fortunate.

Fowler: No, you are. But so are we.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

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