访谈录 Interview 2007-03-08&10, 与92磅毒瘤搏斗

Now to a simply incredible medical story about a woman who lived with a 93-pound tumor 1. 32-year-old Kayla Hilton weighted 563 pounds and had given up hope. She tried every diet but nothing worked. Her health was deteriorating 2. But doctors in SouthCrest Hospital in Tulsa Oklahoma found a large mass in Kayla's belly 3 and in January removed that 93-pound ovarian cyst. Kayla Hilton is here this morning with her primary care-doctor Jennifer Cameron and Dr. Ilana Cass is a gynecological oncologist from the Cedars-Sinai Women's Cancer Research Institute in Los Angeles. Good morning to all of you, thanks for being here.

Good morning.

Kayla, first of all, How do, How are you feeling? The surgery was in January, right?

Feel lighter 4.

You feel lighter.

It was in January and I just, I feel lighter in half in the heal to get better to be able to get around.

The assumption is that this cyst has been in you since you were 16 years old, see you were in high school at that time. You were overweight then, and what began to happen to you.

It just I started losing my cycles. My stomach started getting bigger, but the rest of me was just like, you know, I guess normally the size I was. My stomach was going out like I was pregnant.

But the doctors kept telling you what, you simply have to lose weight (Yeah), exercise, and eat less; you tried all that, (Uh-hum.) and this is, and you kept getting bigger.

Right.

And Dr. Cass, it is interesting she mentioned her cycles stopped, that is one of the first things that you should look at, right?

That can be a symptom that associated with the cysts is irregularity, it isn't natural cycle.

Right. And then, so we finally went to a series of doctors, and what did they keep telling you?

Go on a diet, lose weight, don't eat so much, pretty much basic...


And then you met Dr. Cameron. (Yeah.) And what made you suspect that there were something else going on here, and just something, someone who was simply overweight.

Oh, based on Kayla' physical examination and it's just not add-up. She had several health issues: asthma 5, high-blood pressure, hypothyroidism, insulin-resistance, and history consistence with hypothesis ovary symptoms.

And you wanted to get her in MRI, there wasn't one large enough to fit her, finally you found one, one became available in the hospital and then when you saw on the imaging, what was you first reaction.

I was relieved to know that we had one single answer that was related to all these issues, but it's still an answer all the questions. We really needed to have surgery to make sure that we knew what this left with because we didn't know if it would malignant 6 or benign 7.

Well, Dr. Casst this can't be often malignant, right?

Yes, in fact the cysts are very common. And in women in their twenties and thirties, most cysts actually form from sort of the leftover 8 tissue or fluid, when an egg is released from a woman's ovary. And in most cases those are benign, in other words, they are not cancer and they go away, sort of with the next monthly cycle. But in some cases, there can be abnormal growth of the ovary. Growth that do not go away and in some cases they can be cancer.

So Kayla's symptoms really were typical. But the fact that you are large already made it difficult for doctors to find out what was going on. (Right.) Did you know before that whether it was gonna be malignant or only after?

You only know that with surgery and that is ultimately the biggest problem that we have with these cysts. We don't have a good test to allow us to distinguish something that is a cancer from something that isn't. And that is really what we are trying to develop now is a better test.

And Kayla, I know you are still under doctor's order trying to lose weight. How are you doing?

I'm doing fine, we give me about a year to lose rest of the weight and everything, because they want see how my body handles everything before we start trying everything drastic.

And Dr. Cameron their long term affects this one, once these cysts are removed, do women generally recover?

Well, that is we expect, because during the surgery she did have the cysts removed then the ovarian, the tumor outside. We are trying to stabilize 9 the rest of her health because she has been struggling with all these areas for years. Her high-blood pressure is still a problem. Fluid retention 10 and her lower extremities 11 is still a problem; but we anticipate that she is gonna continue to improve.

And Kayla any frustration 12 of the earlier doctors who never picked up on this?

Yeah, but then I got over, because you know you can't keep be in mad of them for not, you know finding it and everything. And I just you know, water under the bridge.

Well, good luck to you. Kayla Hilton thanks so much. Dr. Jennifer Cameron, Dr. Ilana Cass I appreciate you all being here.

Very quickly you got 3 seconds.

I want to say thank you to Dr. Cass for doing the surgery, because if He hadn't, I don't know if I would been here after all.

We will be right back.