MANILA, Philippines - Cancer is a leading cause of global burden. In the Philippines, where treatment is very costly, thousands suffer from the disease, either left with no hope for survival or weighed down by financial burden which may take years to write off.
There is hope for cancer patients, especially those suffering stage IV cancer, through Jose R. Reyes Memorial Medical Center’s Department of Ear, Nose, Throat, Head and Neck Surgery (JRRMMC-ENTHNS) and its partnership with Orient Europharma (OEP) Philippines and Taiwan’s Shin Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital.
JRRMMC emphasized this possibility last July 30 in a press conference held at the New World Hotel in Makati City.
Dr. Antonio Chua, and his team led the event, JRRMMC-ENTHNS chairman, providing information and hope to others crippled by the disease through the story of stage IV cancer survivor Daniel Meraña.
The conference, dubbed “Face Off: Science and Man’s Triumph Over Stage 4 Cancer,” reflects the journey of hope undertaken by Meraña through the surgical procedure which he underwent last May 30 at the JRRMMC.
During the procedure, the skin on the left side of Meraña’s neck up to his cheek was opened, paving the way for the left jaw’s extraction together with the left lymph node pad of the neck.
The procedure was actually the demonstration surgery of Asian Society of Head and Neck Oncology president Prof. Sheng-Po Hao during the JRRMMC-ENTHNS’s post-graduate course entitled “The Neck in Head and Neck Cancer.”
Sheng-Po, chairman of the Ear, Nose Throat, -Head and Neck Surgery Department of the Shin Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital, also shared his expertise through lectures during the event.
The course was the first in a series on head and beck cancer to be offered by the JRRMMC-ENTHNS.
Viewed at the JRRMMC conference room through the use of a live video feed from the operating room, wide excision with left hemi-mandibulectomy and left modified radical neck dissection were performed on Meraña, with the assistance of JRRMMC-ENTHNS consultant Dr. Samantha Castañeda.
“I thought it was just a toothache,” said Daniel Meraña when asked about how he first knew of him having cancer. This was in December 2005, a time his family was already distraught with his father having lung cancer.
It became only official for Meraña come the New Year of 2006 after consulting at the Philippine General Hospital’s Outpatient Department.
With his father at the death bed with cancer, Meraña had to go alone from one medical procedure to another as his family, especially his mother, was busy attending to his father’s needs. He was working as a security guard then and his salary was not enough to cover for his treatment. He decided, then, to just let the illness be and wait for his death.
The tumor was then left to grow for four years and had bulged on his face to the size of a guava fruit. During this time, Meraña was forced to leave employment and get part-time jobs processing applications at the Land Transportation Office.
This was where he met his girlfriend two years ago. Through her, Meraña’s hope to live was revived. He now found more reason to seek treatment. This renewed passion eventually led him to the JRRMMC-ENTHNS.
At the time, Meraña was being evaluated at the JRRMMC, Chua was in the midst of finalizing the preparations for the post-graduate course. Orient Europharma (OEP) Philippines, through France Mendez, its product manager for anti-infectives, earlier had confirmed the arrival of Sheng-Po.
Serendipitously, Meraña was cleared for surgery a week before the course. Eventually, it was arranged for Meraña to be operated on during the course.
The first two weeks after Merana’s surgery were the most difficult. Aside from sustaining himself with congee and lots of fluid, he had to contend with the pain from the surgery, the emotional coping for his new facial features, the overwhelming desire to go home, and the fact that there was no one to sponsor the reconstruction of a new jaw.
OEP president JP Chang, after learning that there was no sponsor for the operation, contacted Sheng-Po for assistance.
“I was happy to learn that the operation was successful. Other businessmen would just be satisfied in knowing that,” Chang said in an interview.
“However, when I learned from Dr. Chua that he will be living with soft food for the rest of his life because he could not afford the titanium implant surgery, which costs around P350,000, I felt our efforts were useless. I had to do something. It’s my obligation to help others considering my company’s doing good in this country,” Chang recalled.
OEP got in touch with Sheng-Po, who was able to get Shin Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital to agree to provide the reconstruction surgery free of charge.
The proposed reconstructive surgery is fibula free flap, requiring transfer of the lower leg bone and attaching it to the remaining mandible with titanium implants.
Viability of the transferred bone is enhanced because the blood supply to the bone is reconnected via the neck blood vessels.
Chua would have wanted the reconstruction surgery to be done in the Philippines, as local doctors are capable of doing it and equipped facilities, such as those in JRRMMC.
However, since it was offered for free by the Shin Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital with OEP offering to pay for the fare and accommodations, Meraña gladly decided to undergo the procedure in Taiwan last Aug. 1.
Meraña will be staying there for a month for his recovery and will be flown back to the country afterwards.