Since being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a year earlier, Olav Ruud had part of his pancreas removed, followed by two rounds of chemotherapy. And yet scans were showing two new tumors.
The retired commodities broker started searching online to see if there were any pancreatic cancer therapy trials he could sneak into.
The article was about an experimental natural killer cell therapy that stopped the former U.S. senator’s pancreatic cancer cold in two months.
Ruud kept digging and found that a natural killer cell trial for pancreatic cancer patients was about to start at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach. He applied and got word this past March that he had been accepted.
Ruud packed up his belongings at his home in the San Juan Islands in Washington and headed to Newport Beach, where he is now renting an apartment near the hospital.
Today Ruud is in his third month in the trial. His tumor makers are stabilized.