WRNMMC, Bethesda, Md.   –   Army Lt. Col. (Dr.) Sean Kern and Army Maj. (Dr.) Alexander Dew are physicians who provide quality care to cancer patients at Walter Reed, and they’re also cancer survivors.

Kern and Dew, along with Marine Corps Sgt. Michael Christian, also a cancer survivor and Walter Reed patient, shared their stories with other physicians, researchers, scholars and more who attended the Convergent Science Virtual Cancer Center (CSVCC) Second Annual Symposium, held Oct. 3-5.

Walter Reed hosted day one of the three-day event, designed to enhance collaboration in cancer research and treatment. The event also highlighted military health care for cancer. The John P. Murtha Cancer Center (MCC), located at Walter Reed, is the only Cancer Center of Excellence in the Department of Defense (DOD).

The CSVCC aims to accelerate progress toward ending or neutralizing cancer by training the next generation of cancer researchers using convergence and adaptability, explained Dr. Dan Theodorescu and Dr. Peter Kuhn.

Theodorescu, director of Cedars-Sinai Cancer, and Kuhn, director of the Convergent Science Institute in Cancer at the USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience, lead the CSVCC. They explained that convergence combines advances from biology, chemistry, medicine, physics, mathematics, computer science, statistics, and engineering to improve outcomes for patients. Adaptability means the CSVCC “will adapt and evolve based on the needs of patients and developments in the field of cancer research,” they shared.

Retired Army Col. (Dr.) Kenneth Bertram, who served 24 years on active duty, including as commander of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), serves as a special advisor on military health for the CSVCC. In addition, retired Army Col. (Dr.) Craig Shriver, who served on 34 years on active duty and is the MCC director, sits on the Convergence Council. The Murtha Cancer Center is the Department of Defense’s (DOD) only Cancer Center of Excellence.

Funding from DOD through the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs’ (CDMRP) Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program helped establish the CVSCC, which also provides personalized mentorship, support and funding to early-career scientists studying cancer.

Army Col. Sarah Goldman, director of the CDMRP, called Walter Reed “one of the epicenters of military medicine,” and a vision of CDMRP is to “transform health care through innovative and impactful research,” which Walter Reed is at the forefront.

Goldman explained that CDMRP’s CVSCC funding should motivate and challenge “folks to think and do things differently, hopefully leading to impactful solutions making true differences for patients and their loved ones.”

She added that disease, not battlefield injuries, is the number one reason service members are medically evacuated out of theater. “The incidence of cancer certainly continues to be high,” she added. “We do not understand why some cancers disproportionally affect our members of the military and veterans, and that’s something we need to get after.”
Walter Reed’s director U.S. Navy Capt. (Dr.) Melissa Austin agreed, stressing the importance of making a difference because a cancer diagnosis in a service member is also readiness concern. “Young people absolutely get cancer, and they get aggressive cancer. Our most junior personnel are at peak risk for leukemia, lymphoma, sarcoma, and small round blue cell tumor. This has huge readiness implications. Taking a Sailor, Soldier, Airman or Marine out of the fight for a year, two years, [or however long for care], has huge readiness implications because of how much we have invested in them to get them trained and out there at the point of the spear.”

Austin added that those service members diagnosed with cancer “get the best care when they have access to the Military Health System, the military support system, and to their full DOD benefits, so it’s important to keep all of this in house.”

Christian is one of those service members diagnosed with cancer, B-cell leukemia, while deployed in Saudi Arabia. A bodybuilder and health advocate, Christian explained he began getting infections and fevers which was strange because he rarely got sick, if at all. He said it got to the point where he found it difficult to walk, even a yard or two without having to catch his breath. He said his Marine mentality even then led him to believe it was nothing he couldn’t sleep off.

“Eventually, it got to the point someone else noticed,” Christian added.
“My medical team was amazing,” Christian said of the Murtha Cancer Center and Walter Reed staff. “They kept me and my parents in the loop with everything.”

Because he was diagnosed when he was 24, Christian received care along with other pediatric cancer patients after being medically evacuated out of Saudi Arabia to Walter Reed last year. “I was around a bunch of great and brave kids, and my doctors were pediatric oncologists. I got to do artwork with some of the great kids,” he said with a smile.

Christian explained that he stays on top of his medications and keeps a positive attitude. “I can’t let this hold me back.”

Kern and Dew share that same attitude.

“I have the unfortunate but unique perspective of being a cancer surgeon who does testicular cancer and a person with testicular cancer,” said Kern, a urologic oncologist at Walter Reed diagnosed earlier this year. He is also an assistant professor of surgery at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) and founding director of the military’s Testicular Cancer Enterprise for Survivorship, Treatment, and Investigational Sciences “TESTIS” Program, as well as the program director of the Walter Reed’s Urology Residency program.

“The day before Easter of this year, I found a testis mass,” Kern shared. “I had no signs of metastatic disease, but I reached out to my mentors.” He explained he went through a regime of chemotherapy for nine weeks.

Kern said as a whole, cancer care can be improved with better screening, improved management of treatment/therapy toxicity, oncology massage to manage peripheral neuropathy, workout programs to help people get back to being active following chemotherapy and other treatments, and fertility wellness counseling and care. He also stressed the importance of research collaboration regarding cancer, especially concerning greater accessibility, nutrition, genetics, environmental exposures, and biomarkers information.

Dew expressed similar views.

“Before I could treat my first cancer patient as an attending [physician], I had to go through cancer treatment myself,” said Dew, a hematologist/oncologist at Walter Reed. He said he felt a small lump on his face which was barely noticeable. “It wasn’t painful, and there were really no symptoms.”

After it didn’t go away after a couple of months, Dew said he went to see his provider. Dew was also preparing to go to Germany for an assignment in 2020 when he was diagnosed with B-cell lymphoma the day before his scheduled flight. “I couldn’t believe it. I was asymptomatic. I was completely shocked.”

Dew said he immediately called consult services at Walter Reed, and they told him, “Don’t worry about anything other than your cancer treatment. That truly is one of the benefits of military medicine – we take care of our active duty.”

During the CSVCC symposium at Walter Reed, attendees were also able to see where cancer patients and others receive rehabilitation in the Military Advanced Training Center (MATC), and where they are fitted and receive prosthetics if needed. They also saw where service members who may return to duty receive firearms training, and where 3D medical devices are fabricated for those needing adaptive equipment.

“This is about patients,” Theodorescu said. “Everything we do and why we’re here is to ultimately relieve pain and suffering and extend a quality of life for our patients,” he said about the CSVCC, its cancer treatment teams, partners and scholars.