Specialists at UI Health Care helped Mary Harris of Marion, Iowa, avoid major surgery. Now cancer free, she’s focused on spending time with family, traveling, and working on her dancing skills.
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Taylor Vessel
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courtesy of Mary Harris
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With tumor-free scans, Mary Harris (center) continues to live the same way she did before her cancer diagnosis — traveling and spending time with her loved ones.

How was Mary Harris — a matriarch for five kids, 16 grandkids, and 18 great-grandchildren—going to beat colon cancer? And, more importantly, would she maintain her independence when the standard treatment is major surgery?

Worried about that surgery, the now 90-year-old Marion, Iowa, resident was grateful for another option with University of Iowa Health Care Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center. Specialists there gave her the option to join a clinical trial that meant she would avoid surgery, if her body responded to immunotherapy.

“When they told me about the clinical trial, it just seemed like what I was supposed to do,” she says.

Leveraging a patient’s own immune system

Harris is a great example of the early success of an innovative clinical trial led by Saima Sharif, MD, MS, a medical oncologist and primary investigator of the clinical trial.

The clinical trial looks to see if immunotherapy—a treatment that uses the patient’s immune system to detect and target cancer cells—can help avoid surgery.

“We’re looking to see if colon cancer responds to immunotherapy similarly to rectal cancers and only recommend surgery if the tumor grows or moves,” Sharif says.

Clinical trials at the national level must occur before this practice is enacted as a standard of care. To help catch colorectal cancer as early as possible, Sharif encourages individuals to get their colonoscopy screenings at age 45—and repeat every 10 years. There are other ways to screen including stool testing.

Mary Harris with extended family
Mary Harris, of Marion, Iowa, is surrounded by her family, which includes her five kids, 16 grandkids, and 18 great-grandchildren.

Catching cancer early

For Harris, her cancer was caught during screening after symptoms presented themselves.

“I just have really never thought that I had cancer or felt that I had cancer, but I did,” she says.

Thankfully, her cancer was discovered while it was still in an early stage. Her attitude towards her diagnosis has always been a resilient one, focused in finding the right solution. Harris says if someone is eligible, they should consider if a clinical trial could be right for them.

“I mean, you can try it, if it doesn’t work, then you do something else,” Harris advises.

With tumor-free scans, Harris continues to live the same way she did before her cancer diagnosis. She’s traveling, spending time with her loved ones, and working on her dancing skills.

“I can still live on my own and take care of myself, and if I need to go to the store, I can go to the store,” she says. “It’s just given me a chance of living my life fully.”