2024-05-10 20:49:54
Professor Taekyung Hanyang University Hospital – Oral cancer Kim Hee-sang
Oral cancer after kidney cancer, kidney cancer 10 years later
“I think of him as a ‘hard-hearted friend’ who has come back… “I definitely trust my doctor friend and take treatment.”
A positive attitude is a great help in overcoming cancer.
At some point, my gums started to swell. I thought it was a common gum infection. Treatment ended with taking anti-inflammatory medication. Contrary to expectations, the gum inflammation worsened day by day. I went to the local dentist. The doctor’s expression was unusual. The doctor told me to go to a big hospital. It was only then that I started to get worried.
A biopsy was taken at a large dental hospital. The doctor said he had malignant melanoma, a type of skin cancer, in his mouth. This is a story from July 2017, 7 years ago. This is how Kim Hee-sang (65), who was in his late 50s at the time, began his battle with oral cancer.
●I overcame kidney cancer, but oral cancer came back
![Cancer that metastasized and recurred… The secret to successfully overcoming four surgeries[병을 이겨내는 사람들]](https://dimg.donga.com/wps/NEWS/IMAGE/2024/05/10/124883292.7.jpg "Cancer that metastasized and recurred… The secret to successfully overcoming four surgeries[병을 이겨내는 사람들]")
This is not the first time Mr. Kim has been diagnosed with cancer. It was in 2010 when his father went to Sansan. He felt the need to urinate, so he rushed to do his business, but blood came out, the size of a grain of rice. The next day, he was rushed to a local hospital and underwent tests. The doctor said it was kidney cancer.
At the time, his wife, who heard the news before Mr. Kim, cried profusely. Kim’s head also went blank, she said. Still, she did not despair. Because the cancer mass was large, the stage of kidney cancer was close to stage 3, but fortunately it had not spread to other organs.
I went straight to the operating table. He had his entire left kidney, which had cancer, removed. The result of the surgery was good. She didn’t even receive chemotherapy. Five years passed like that. In 2015, Mr. Kim was diagnosed with complete recovery from kidney cancer.
Did you say it was a good thing or many demons? Two years after being free from cancer, Mr. Kim was diagnosed with cancer for the second time. Oral cancer. It felt like the sky was falling. “I thought this cancer could be difficult, and I told his wife the same,” he said. “I remember seeing my wife unable to continue her words,” he said.
There is a reason why Mr. Kim was shocked. First of all, the disease was stage 4. The condition of the mouth was miserable. Cancerous lumps were attached to his gums and palate, and almost the entire upper part of his gum bone was destroyed. His cancer cells had spread to his lymph glands. Even doctors at large hospitals said, “The cancer is so advanced that surgery is difficult, so let’s try chemotherapy first.”
At the time, the doctor suggested immunotherapy. It was said that the treatment cost alone was about 150 million won because it was not covered by health insurance. Even then, the probability of complete cure is less than 20%. Mr. Kim was experiencing financial difficulties due to the collapse of the company he was running at the time. He was in a situation where he could not dream of immunotherapy. His mind became more complicated.
●I trusted my friend and climbed to the operating table.
The news that Mr. Kim had cancer spread among his high school classmates. One day one of his friends came to visit him. The friend said, “One of our classmates is Taekyung, a professor of otolaryngology at Hanyang University Hospital. “I heard Professor Tae is good, so let’s go,” he said, persuading Mr. Kim. He declined, saying Kim didn’t want to burden his friend. His friend dragged him by force and took him to Professor Tae.
Professor Tae said, “If the cancer has spread to the base of the neck, I cannot perform surgery because it is beyond the scope of otolaryngology. “If not, let’s try surgery.” As a result of the test, I was diagnosed with oral cancer and in the two months since then, the cancerous lump has grown to 7cm in size. It was confirmed again that it had metastasized to the lymph glands. The good news is that it did not metastasize to the lungs or other organs. Professor Tae decided that surgery could be performed. Professor Tae said, “Surgery is the best treatment for malignant melanoma. “However, my friend’s condition was so bad that I couldn’t guarantee success,” he recalled of that time.
Upon hearing the news that surgery had been decided, Mr. Kim asked who would perform the surgery. Professor Tae said he would do the housework himself. Mr. Kim said, “If that’s the case, I will trust you and get on the operating table.”
The difficult surgery has begun. Professor Tae first began surgery to remove oral cancer. A 10cm incision was made along the line next to his nose up to the philtrum area. He removed all of the inner bones and the roof of the mouth to remove any remaining cancer cells. He then began a second surgery to fill his mouth, which had been left empty by plastic surgery staff. The medical staff removed flesh from Kim’s thigh and transplanted it into his mouth. This entire surgery took a full 12 hours.
After the surgery was completed, a biopsy was performed. Not even microscopic cancer cells were visible. Professor Tae said, “At that moment, I was confident that the surgery would be successful and that I would recover completely.” In fact, Mr. Kim did not receive chemotherapy or radiation treatment afterward.
●Kidney cancer recurred after 10 years
Medically, if cancer is not found even 5 years after surgery, it is considered completely cured. Accordingly, Mr. Kim was diagnosed with complete recovery from kidney cancer in 2015. In the same way, oral cancer will also be diagnosed as cured by 2022. It really seemed like that would happen. He had follow-up tests every three or six months and no cancer cells were seen. Three years passed like that. He thought that in just two more years he would be cured.
The reality was different from expectations. Cancer occurred in the lungs in 2020. Both Professor Tae and Mr. Kim were heartbroken. This is because there is a possibility that oral cancer has spread to the lungs. Professor Tae said, “Oral cancer usually spreads easily to the lungs. In particular, malignant melanoma frequently recurs. “In this situation, the survival rate is less than 30%.”
The biopsy results showed unexpected results. The tissue was the same as the kidney cancer that had already been diagnosed as cured. This means that kidney cancer metastasized to the lungs within 10 years. Mr. Kim had to get on the operating table again. The thoracic surgery staff at Hanyang University Hospital removed part of the lung.
This wasn’t the end. Two years later, in December 2022, the cancer recurred in the kidney area that had been removed. Mr. Kim went back to the operating table and underwent his fourth cancer surgery, removing the lymph gland in the area. Fortunately, the oral cancer did not recur or spread, and by this time he was declared cured.
In July of last year, cancer was discovered in the right kidney, which was fine. Kidney cancer had recurred. However, this time I did not go to surgery. Park Seong-yeol, a professor of urology at Hanyang University Hospital who is treating Mr. Kim, explained, “The immune anti-cancer effect is maintained well, with cancer cells not growing, so we are only doing follow-up tests.”
Professor Park said, “In the case of kidney cancer, there are often cases of recurrence even after 10 to 20 years. However, because most people are asymptomatic like Mr. Kim, only annual follow-up tests are often performed.” This means that although you have kidney cancer, if you manage it well, you can live well without surgery or other treatment.
●“Communicate with the doctor with a positive attitude.”
Although he overcame several crises, Mr. Kim became more relaxed again. Even though his kidney cancer metastasized and recurred after 10 years, he wasn’t too worried. Mr. Kim said, “I thought one of his mischievous friends had come back. “He didn’t feel a sense of crisis,” he said.
His explanation is that he regained his composure while fighting his illness. Mr. Kim said, “I successfully endured three surgeries, and I am also coping well with the fourth immunotherapy treatment, so I thought, ‘I wonder if I can’t do anything.’ Besides, he has a reliable doctor friend, so there is no need to worry,” he said with a smile. He believes that he can overcome cancer, and he has already done his best by faithfully following the doctor’s instructions and devoting himself to treatment. The following is the meaning of heaven.
Professor Tae commented, “This friend gets along well with people and is positive in everything he does. This positive attitude was a great help in overcoming cancer.” He continued, “The most important thing in treatment is the patient’s positive mind. “If a positive patient develops a trusting relationship with the doctor, treatment becomes that much easier,” he explained.
Mr. Kim said, “I trusted my doctor implicitly, perhaps because he was my high school classmate. He also said, “He tried to do the same when receiving treatment at the urology department.” Mr. Kim said, “There are many people around me who take strange drugs or foods without listening to doctors, but I think it is not only useless, but it also wastes time and makes the body worse. He completely rejected such things. “I think we got good results thanks to this,” he said.
Mr. Kim now pays attention to his health. He walks more than 10,000 steps every day. Of course, before he got cancer, he had built up a wall around exercise. Now he feels unwell without exercising. I also developed a habit of being careful in everything. A person who drinks alcohol every day rarely even touches it. Mr. Kim laughed and said, “I feel like I’m getting healthier.”
Reporter Kim Sang-hoon [email protected]
2024-05-10 20:49:54