The Interview

Dr. Christopher Sirridge, is a doctor who specializes in cancer and hematology. His cancer specialties are in leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and myelodysplastic syndrome. He works with the University of Kansas Cancer Center in North Kansas City. Christopher knew he wanted to be a cancer doctor since he was nine years old. Dr. Sirridge graduated the University of Kansas at the age of 19 and went on to the University of Missouri- Kansas City’s medical school. graduating medical school at 23. On February 5, 2015, we interviewed Dr. Sirridge.

Question: Why did you choose the field of cancer?

Answer: I chose cancer medicine, because it was just so consistently interesting and so consisting compelling. My mom was a cancer physician so she influenced me. During my career in cancer medicine, there has been advancement and I would like to be part of that. I also like to be around hard fighting patients.

Question: How would you explain cancer?

Answer: In a brief way, every cell in the body that is normal does certain things. Number one, it has programmable cell death, called apoptosis. Every cell has to live, reproduce, and then die. Nearly every cell in the body has a cellular function and these cells stay put where they were destined to be in the first place. And finally, normal cells receive normal blood, nutrients, and oxygen and they share that wealth. Normal cells have programmable cell death keeping normal number of cells constant. The second thing they do is that they stay put. Heart cells stay in the heart and brain cells stay in the brain. Cancer cells often have no programmable cell death. They divide and keep living. They are in fact almost immortal. Cancer cells travel and move wherever they want. As they travel, they grow and wherever they go, they do damage. They are angiogenic. Angio meaning blood vessel. Genic meaning the generation of. They make their own blood cells. They get the blood supply, oxygen, to move to other cells. Cancer cells are a major bad dream because they do whatever normal cells don’t do. They don’t die, they take all the goodies, and they move around. That makes them fatal.

Question: What would you say to person who doesn’t know about cancer?

Answer: They need to know if they have a cancer and if it’s curable. They need to know what is going to be the cost in time, pain, and change in body function. They need to know what our plan is to go about this cure. They need to know: do they have it, is it curable, what is the cost, what they are going to have to endure to get to this point. I always try and tell a patient what the reason is that they have this cancer. They always ask: How did this happen to me? I tell them if it’s related to lifestyle, age, gender, risk factor, and genetics. I try to get rid of misunderstanding that promotes guilt because patients find a way to blame themselves. I always tell the truth because patients want to know what they are up against no matter how tough it may be. They ask me “What do I have? If it’s not curable, how long will I live? What treatments are necessary? What is the cost?” And finally, we talk about why the cancer? After that it becomes a very specific discussion as to what tumor what they have and what we need to do. I sure hate to have a patient leave an initial appointment blaming themselves because that gets in the way of healing.  I think that forgiveness is divine. Without forgiveness, there is no peace. Forgiving yourself will help you find peace.

Question: Do you know anything about grid computing?

Answer: Grid computing? Educate me and then I’ll answer.

Well, for our class, we are running a software called the World Community Grid so it does the research for you. So we picked childhood cancer to help find a cure to cancer. It basically runs algorithms on your computer so we are contributing to help find a cure. So do you think that this is important?

Answer: I think grid computing is important because every community, every area of the world, every ethnicity, every different age has its own demographic. Patterns of disease in terms of where you would most likely expect to find it, where you would most likely expect to treat it, and who most likely is to get it gives you the next algorithm on how you screen for it or how you prevent it. So, algorithms and demographics are important. There are some cancers that are more common in the Midwest that are not common in California or New York. There are some cancers more common in the United States than are in China. There are 2 or 3 cancers more common in China than they are in the United States. So, when you get that kind of database through grid computing, it becomes an asset and an accessible piece of information for everybody. These patterns are helpful in helping you find a cure or treatment for cancer.

Question: Do you have any interesting stories about a patient?

Answer: Yeah, we have compelling stories every day. I have one particular patient that because of a cancer she got as a teenager and because of the treatment that she got to cure that cancer and because of her family history and what has happened to her as an adult, she is at risk for any number of malignancies and in fact is likely to get those cancers because of the genetic profile she has and because she is a woman and because she developed another disease that predisposes her to a cancer and she is on treatment for that cancer that predisposes herself to another cancer. So, everyday of her life is a waiting game for the revolver to go off. And everyday is how she handles that amount of stress. I think she is a truly amazing soul and she handles it pretty well. But, we aren’t waiting around for the bomb to drop. We are doing everything we can to prevent these things from happening. But she is truly amazing. I have got hundreds of stories of patients that have lived longer than predicted and responded better to treatment than predicted. I have a remarkable man right now that has presented an aggressive lung cancer. One year mortality from time of diagnosis is 50%, two years is 75%, and three years is 95%. Then, after three years, we don’t even categorize that because there are few people left. This gentleman is 6 years in and still living. So, sometimes we get people that are exceptions to stark realities. Families come together at these times and help each other. It’s nice to see this happen. Any ways that patients express themselves in humor, sadness, and sometimes anger helps them deal with cancer. You never know how a patient will behave in terms of how the tumor behaves. So all of us, and I have been doing this for 36 years, have stories. We have stories of people who have done beautifully and all was stacked against them to do poorly. These are great stories. Stories of how people die gracefully, courageously, meaningfully are some of the most remarkable.

Question: So, why do children get cancer? Why do people get cancer early in life?

Answer: Children with cancer are genetically fated. There are problems as to how they grew. Also, their immune systems are extremely immature. Their immune systems are not capable of turning on to fight viruses and other things. But, no human genome is perfect. Childhood cancer is usually genetic, the result of a poor immune system or a biological accident. We don’t know why but when it happens, it is pretty compelling.

Question: Are children able to come out of cancer better?

Answer: Children’s bodies, despite the fact that they are little, are pristine. They often have good lungs, good heart and bone marrow and are able endure treatment sometimes better than adults. This is because they don’t play the mental game of being defeated. They are the ultimate soldiers. There bodies are in better shape because they don’t have diseases that some of the older people have. So, they can tolerate an incredible amount of treatment because their bodies are pristine. They are amazing human beings.

Question: So, do you go about differently when treating children?

Answer: Yes, you sure do. I think in terms of childhood cancer, you are always trying to find a cure for children or looking for a homerun. In children, you are looking for a big knock. The tumors are completely different in children than in adults. There are more cancers in adults than are in children. In children, we treat their cancers differently than adults. It is different sociologically, psychologically, and physiologically.

Question: How is evolution important in cancer?

Answer: The type of cancers and how they behave have changed even in my 36 years. I’m seeing cancers that are now more common that weren’t once before and I have seen cancers that were once common that aren’t anymore. I guess a deeper question is: has cancer changed? That is one of cancer’s other abilities. They have multiple-resistance genes. Cancers change the way they behave over time. They can be more resistant to treatment and become a different cancer over time. That makes them even more formidable in terms of anatomy. So we are all evolving. Our data evolves. But, lung cancer is still number one and it will probably be this way for the next 25 years. Then colon, breast and prostate are the next most popular cancers. Now, we are better at screening and are curing people more early every day because of this. This has been valuable.

Question: How do you find cancer patients?

Answer: Actually, screenings are a part of the primary care doctors’ responsibilities. That means examinations and that means working with criteria to do so. This includes doing the right studies. For women, it’s mammograms. For women, it is pelvic exams with pap smears. For men, it’s digital rectal examinations for prostate cancer and a blood test. For colon cancer, it is colonoscopy starting at whatever year you should depending on family history and risk factors. For instance, we start screening for prostate cancer at age 50. So, screening is the responsibility of the patient. However, we still do screenings to see if the cancer recurs.

Question: Are more developed countries more susceptible to more cancers?

Answer: More developed countries have things like tanning beds. More developed countries smoke cigarettes, drink more alcohol; eat more processed and highly genetically altered food. More developed countries have more stress, more competition. Stress is one of causes for illness. Probably one of the biggest risk factor for cancer is age. And in countries that have a long natural survival like the United States, 80 for women and 78 for men, our age is a little different. The reason why we get cancer is sometimes we live long enough to get it.

Question: Do you think there will ever be a cure to cancer?

Answer: I think there will be some cures. I think cancer is a different disease in everybody it comes. But, cancer is more than one disease. There were some cures and will be more. But I don’t think we will ever eradicate this because of the human condition. We are programmed to die and there has to be a reason why we die and one of those reasons is cancer. So, no, I don’t think we are ever going to completely cure it because it is a unique disease.

Question: Do you think we will be able to mutate out of it?

Answer: I think we will have some genetic modifications. Cancer can get better though. I do think that we will continue to increase our average survival. I think we will be able to change the genetic behaviors. We have already done that in some cancers. But I think it will be in baby steps. Cancer is so unpredictable that it changes off of that template and that’s scary. And sometimes, that’s why I fear for the patient and humanity.

After listening to Dr. Sirridge talk about his experiences with cancer, we learned more about our topic of cancer. This knowledge that we gained help us realize our contribution to the World Community Grid. Dr. Sirridge was a very nice person to talk with. He was very knowledgeable in cancer. His experiences have made him very wise and we are thankful that he made time to sit and talk with us.