Marking More Than 20 Years Since the Peanuts Creator's Death
- Cartoonist Charles Schulz died from colon cancer in February 2000 at age 77.
- His doctors discovered his cancer accidentally, while performing surgery to repair a blockage in his abdominal aorta.
- Schulz was treated with surgery and chemotherapy, but his cancer had already spread and he died a few months after his diagnosis.
- Today, many more effective colon cancer treatments are available, including drugs that target proteins and gene changes the help the cancer grow.
Schulz passed away a day before his final Sunday cartoon strip ran, and nearly fifty years after Peanuts made its debut, introducing us to the gang of Snoopy, Linus, Peppermint Patty, and the eternally misfortunate Charlie Brown. The beloved cartoon strip would eventually be featured in more than 2,600 newspapers, reaching some 355 million readers each morning. It spawned a series of Emmy-winning animated TV specials, and even a Broadway musical.
Read MoreA Surprise Diagnosis
Abdominal cramps and numbness in his lower body during the previous summer had sent Schultz to his doctor, who discovered a life-threatening blockage in his abdominal aorta — the major vessel that delivers blood to the abdomen, pelvis, and legs. While performing surgery to repair the problem, the surgeons discovered that Schulz had colon cancer.
At the time, treatment for colon cancer was surgery, followed by chemotherapy with a combination of the drugs 5-fluorouracil and leucovorin (known collectively as 5-FU/LV). Schulz’s surgeons removed as much of as cancer as they could, but by that time it had already metastasized. After getting a few months of chemotherapy, Schulz died on February 12, 2000.
Better Outcomes Today
Early detection and treatment advances have improved the outlook for colon cancer since Schulz’s passing. Although surgery and chemotherapy are still important parts of treatment, targeted drugs and immunotherapies are also available today.
The number of chemotherapy drug cocktails has increased dramatically. In addition to 5-FU, doctors can choose from the following regimens:
- FOLFOX: leucovorin, 5-FU, and oxaliplatin (Eloxatin)
- FOLFIRI: leucovorin, 5-FU, and irinotecan (Camptosar)
- CAPEOX or CAPOX: capecitabine (Xeloda) and oxaliplatin
- FOLFOXIRI: leucovorin, 5-FU, oxaliplatin, and irinotecan
- Trifluridine and tipiracil (Lonsurf)
How to manage metastatic colon cancer
A New Generation of Colon Cancer Drugs
“There are a lot of advances that are being made in colorectal cancer,” Dr. Heather Yeo, colorectal surgeon at Weill Cornell Medicine, told SurvivorNet in a previous interview.
Today, colon cancer treatment is more targeted. Doctors can test for specific changes or genetic mutations that accelerate the cancer’s growth, and treat them with precision medicine.
Anywhere from 25% to 82% of colorectal cancers make too much of the protein epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), which helps the cancer grow. The drugs cetuximab (Erbitux) and panitumumab (Vectibix) work by blocking this protein.
About 5% of people with metastatic colon cancer have genetic abnormalities called microsatellite instability high (MSI-H) or mismatch repair deficient (dMMR) that prevent the DNA inside the cells from repairing itself. A group of immunotherapy drugs known as checkpoint inhibitors — including pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and nivolumab (Opdivo) — help the immune system more effectively target these cancers.
"This is groundbreaking," Dr. Jun Gong, a medical oncologist at Cedars-Sinai Hospital told SurvivorNet after Keytruda was approved for colon cancer. "Not only because pembrolizumab (Keytruda) is well-tolerated and demonstrated more than doubling progression-free survival, [but it also] offers patients for the first time with metastatic colorectal cancer, an option to avoid chemotherapy."
The more we learn about late-stage colon cancer, the more treatments will improve, and the longer people with this cancer will survive. These advancements unfortunately came too late for Charles Shulz, but they are offering great hope for people who are diagnosed today.
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