MUTC Founder heads to S.F. for ASCO GI conference
Below zero degrees in Maine as I ride the early bus to Boston to catch a flight to San Francisco.
I’ve grown accustomed to this routine.
Bus from Portland to Boston. Flight to whatever cancer conference or event. Flight back to Boston. Bus home.
Today I’m heading to ASCO GI, a conference that brings together the world’s top oncologists and other clinicians who specialize in cancers of the gastrointestinal tract. With colorectal cancer fast becoming the number one cancer killer for people under 50, now is the time for creativity and collaboration. The status quo is failing us.
My goals for this week are to seek funding for the retreats, local chapters, and backpack program run by Man Up to Cancer, and to learn the latest science as I seek to cure - or at least stall - my own cancer that I’ve been living with for seven years.
Since my latest major surgery in the fall of 2023, I’ve remained stable except for one tumor behind my stomach that is now 2.5 cm. Next week I’ll be starting back on immunotherapy to hopefully control that tumor and weigh my options.
Sitting here on the bus, I realized that five years ago at this very same time, ASCO GI 2020 was the first cancer conference I had ever attended. I had just founded Man Up to Cancer and I was volunteering as a media relations specialist for COLONTOWN, with Nancy Seybold and Erika Hanson Brown, who introduced me to the world of patient advocacy.
My roommate was Steve Schwarze, a powerhouse stage IV colon cancer patient who directed every ounce of his brilliant scientific mind toward finding effective therapies for patients. Steve was kind and generous with a sharp sense of humor. He would serve as Mayor of COLONTOWN at a critical juncture for the organization.
I vividly remember spending time at that conference with Steve and Todd Mercer, who went by Todd Scott on social media. He was also battling stage IV colon cancer, and had undergone HIPEC surgery, which I would later do as well. Despite a persistent cough from lung mets, Todd was optimistic and full of energy. He had an idea for an app for newly diagnosed patients.
Both of those great guys died from colon cancer, as have most of the amazing people who mentored me back then. There are too many to name, and so many of them were relatively young, and had been super healthy before they were diagnosed.
If you watch commercials and read about cancer in the press, you might think a lot has changed since I was diagnosed in 2018. Some studies are reporting that stage IV CRC patients are living longer, but most of them still won’t make it to three years after diagnosis, and the 5-year-survival rate remains under 15 percent.
It’s not good enough.
And with more people being diagnosed at younger ages, a reckoning is coming.
We haven’t moved the needle in terms of survival, and we don’t have answers to the underlying question of why younger people - including many with zero red flags for higher risk - are getting sick and dying from colorectal cancer.
To be honest, it’s becoming hard for me to believe anything will change. It seems that younger people with cancer are seen as acceptable collateral damage for a modern world in which we are awash in toxins, from our cars and offices to furniture and food.
But I can’t allow myself to give in to defeatism. There are incredibly smart, big hearted scientists working to help us. Many of them will be at ASCO GI this week. I’ll get a chance to meet them and thank them for their work, and encourage them to keep pushing forward.
This is how I can best love and honor my cancer community. I will speak for the friends I have lost, and for the ones to follow. It’s what Steve, Todd, and so many others taught me.
Founder and CEO Trevor Maxwell on a morning bus from Portland, Maine, to Boston, Jan. 21, 2025
ASCO GI panel
Trevor Maxwell and Todd Mercer, ASCO GI Conference, San Francisco, January 2020
Steve Schwarze