In Their Prime, And Dvinci of Cancer

摘要

The Numbers Stared BethanyrnHartung bleakly in the face. Cancer survival rates in older adults and children had inched up an average of 1% or 2% each year over 2 decades, the graph showed. But for teenagers and young adults like her, the prospects for survival had barely budged.rnRemembering the moment she came across those statistics, "I was just kind of amazed," said Hartung, 21, in a telephone conversation from her family's home outside Portland, Oregon, 5 days before she died of leukemia. She had endured two relapses and nearly 3 years of grueling treatment, including a bone marrow transplant. When that failed to help, she was offered a spot in an experimental phase I study of a toxic therapy that she believed had little chance of beating back the disease. Hartung declined. "It was pretty much an easy decision," she said. Instead, she entered hospice care at home and died on 24 June, 2 weeks before her 22nd birthday.