Award-winning actress, , 66, passed away over the weekend. She had lived with chronic lymphocytic leukemia for more than 20 years and, during this time, acted in dozens of movies, plays, and TV series while living with cancer, according to her IMDb filmography.Although much remains to be done in cancer research, this was a great "teachable moment" showing that medical science has in some cases succeeded in transforming cancer from a fatal disease to a manageable chronic illness that is compatible with a full, rich and productive life.
Since we’ve been covering “the medical facts behind the headlines” of celebrity illnesses, we’ve seen more than a dozen cases of leukemias and lymphomas and each provides it's own teachable moment. These cases are listed in the table below and each specific disease is linked to information about it provided by the U.S. National Cancer Institute.
| Name | Age |
Type of Cancer |
| 26 | ||
| 36 | ||
| 75 | non-Hodgkin's lymphoma | |
| 35 | Hodgkin's Disease | |
| 86 | non-Hodgkin's lymphoma | |
| 70 | non-Hodgkin's lymphoma | |
| 66 | ||
| 62 | ||
| 72 | ||
| 39 | Hodgkin's Disease | |
| 56 | Hodgkin's Disease (1983), non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (2009) | |
| 35 | acute myelogenous leukemia | |
| 69 | chronic myelogenous leukemia |
BTW, that's Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen in the picture above imitating his guitar hero, Jimi Hendrix. In 1983 at the age of 30, Mr. Allen was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease. Allen, who is now 56 years old, was successfully treated and remained disease-free for more than 25 years. It doesn’t seem fair to have two different cancers in a lifetime, but Mr. Allen was recently diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
It is well-known, of course, that second malignant neoplasms are a major cause of late morbidity and mortality following treatment for Hodgkin's disease []. If any of our Heme/Onc colleagues out there have more recent articles on this topic that they'd like to recommend, please do!
In another case of Hodgkin's Disease, we've done a series of stories following Survivor Ethan Zohn's 9-month clinical course:
- following chemotherapy
- "Bubble Boy"
- Early