Jennifer Matthews: Barbara Link does what she can to keep her garden healthy, but her own health wasn't nearly as easy to control.
Barbara Link: It was a large tumor and for awhile they seemed to say it was growing before their eyes.
Jennifer Matthews: Traditional treatments didn't help, so Barbara joined a study of an experimental treatment at Duke University.
Barbara Link: I had an aggressive cancer and I needed an aggressive treatment.
Jennifer Matthews: Patients get chemotherapy with drugs encapsulated inside fat globules called Liposomes. The patient lies down on a table placing her breast in a pool of warm water. The warmth draws the Liposomes to the tumor, and stimulates release of the drug.
Dr. Kim Blackwell: The way we control where the chemotherapy goes is which tissue is actually being heated.
Jennifer Matthews: The treatment allowed doctors to deliver 30 times more drugs directly to the tumor.
Dr. Kim Blackwell: So using this therapy we were able to really avoid getting high levels of chemotherapy in the tissues that weren't affected by cancer.
Jennifer Matthews: Of 21 women treated, all had their tumor growth stopped. Thirty-three percent saw their tumors disappear. And in fifty-six percent, the tumors shrank significantly. For many, including Barbara, that meant doctors could remove the tumor without removing the breast.
Barbara Link: I was very surprised and very happy.
Jennifer Matthews: Barbara and the other women in the study jokingly call the treatment the Booby Jacuzzi. It's a little easier for Barbara and her family to laugh about it now that she's out of hot water. This is Jennifer Matthews reporting.
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