Recently, Christopher Hitchens has cancelled speaking engagements at SUNY-Stony Brook and Colorado State University. When Slate magazine announced that Hitchens would go on leave in order receive radiation treatment, I decided to interview an oncologist who is a friend of mine.
I must make it absolutely clear that the oncologist has never treated Hitchens. In fact, he has never even heard of the writer. Of course, I have never met Hitchens, either. Based on my limited knowledge, I simply described Hitchens’s illness and treatment to the physician. In June of 2010, Hitchens was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. The doctor explained that esophageal cancer comes in two forms. The first type is adenocarcinoma, which is mostly related to acid reflex. A condition known as Barrett’s esophagus can be a precursor to this cancer. When I told the doctor that Hitchens has the second form of esophageal cancer, squamous cell carcinoma, he said: “That is clearly linked to alcohol and smoking.” Although smoking alone is linked to esophageal cancer, “the combination of smoking and alcohol increases the risk further.” Hitchens Watch readers who would like to learn more about esophageal cancer should consult Dr. Sugar Singleton’s educational videos, which were helpfully posted by Greywolf in September of 2010.
Anyway, I explained to the oncologist that Hitchens remained relatively active during his chemotherapy. Now that the journalist has embarked on a course of radiation treatment, he has withdrawn from public life. “It is not a good sign,” the oncologist said.
When Hitchens received his diagnosis, he was already at Stage 4. As he pointed out in his famously blunt manner on C-Span: “There is no Stage 5.” In January of 2011, FGFM posted this latest C-Span appearance on Hitchens Watch. Hitchens’s discussion with Brian Lamb covered his health extensively.
Let us turn back to my own brief interview with the oncologist. He explained that when a patient receives a diagnosis of Stage 4 esophageal cancer, chemotherapy is administered for palliative rather than curative purposes. In fact, there is no cure at this stage. The median survival rate is less than a year. By shrinking the tumor, chemotherapy can control pain and relieve difficulty in swallowing. Thirty percent of patients, or slightly more, respond well to chemotherapy. In rare cases, patients can even live as long as two years, but even they cannot be cured. “The tumor starts growing again several months after chemotherapy is completed,” the oncologist said.
Since Hitchens has now resorted to radiation therapy, I asked the doctor if the journalist’s condition has worsened. “That is a likely scenario,” he said. Like chemotherapy, radiation therapy is a palliative procedure. Chemotherapy has likely proven ineffective for Hitchens, so his physicians have turned to radiation therapy for the same reasons: to control pain and ease swallowing. “There is also a possibility that the disease has spread,” he said, adding that in some cases, the cancer spreads to the bone. Of course, Hitchens acknowledged to Lamb that the cancer has already metastasized to his lymph nodes, and perhaps even to one lung.
I asked the physician to estimate how long Hitchens has to live: “Less than six months.”
“The enemies of intolerance cannot be tolerant." • "If it is an offense to justice to hold people who may have been victims of mistaken identity or of vendettas by other factions, then it is also an offense to justice to release psychopathic killers who believe that they have divine permission to throw acid in the faces of girls who want to attend school." • "Don't be such a lesbian!
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