Grieving husband wants better access to PET scans in Calgary

A grieving Calgary father is questioning cancer care in our city, after his wife died from a rare form of pregnancy-related cancer.

Lyall Marshall wants to know why his wife couldn’t get a cancer test in Calgary which may have helped save her life.

Memory Marshall was diagnosed with gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN) which grows from the placenta.

It’s rare, affecting one in every 40-thousand new mothers, and has a 50% survival rate.

“Utter shock, the floor dropped beneath us, nobody knew how bad it was, even when you knew how bad it was, you’re never ready for it,” says Marshall.

He’s written the Calgary Health region a letter, demanding an answer to why Memory was denied access to an emergency PET scan in Calgary in December of 2005.

The family was told they could have the same test in Edmonton in early January, but the Calgary scanner, which was unveiled six months earlier, wasn’t an option.

“It was not available…patients at that time that had liver cancer were using the PET scan machine, gynecological cancers weren’t able to use it,” says Marshall.

In Canada, PET (positron emission tomography) scans are still considered investigational and are only available on a limited basis.

In the United States, Memory could get in right away. The family traveled to Montana and spent almost $5,000 for a private scan.

By the time they got back to Alberta, the cancer had spread.

“By the time she was assessed by doctor in January, she had a visual tumor in her vagina which was inoperable, the hysterectomy was cancelled,” he adds.

Marshall says he doesn’t know if an earlier PET scan in Calgary would have made a difference, but he doesn’t think women in Calgary are getting fair treatment.

“There’s no logic there, I don’t know what the reason is, that one disease goes to Edmonton the other to Calgary.”

The Alberta Cancer Board says, at the time of Memory’s case, the federal government would not allow gynecological cancers to be seen at the Calgary facility because it was still so new.

In mid-2006, that policy changed, says Cathy Classen of the ACB. Now, most cancer patients can receive PET scans in Calgary, without having to travel to Edmonton or out of the province.

Classen says the Marshall case is unfortunate, but says Albertans should consider themselves lucky to have access to this technology at all. Alberta, Quebec and Ontario are the only provinces where patients can get publicly funded PET scans.

Lyall Marshall says he hopes other women don’t have to undergo the hardship and travel that Memory did in her last year of life.

The family is organizing a fundraiser called Memory’s Hockey for the Cure to help raise awareness about GTN and raise money for the Alberta Cancer Board.

For more info visit www.hockeyforthecure.com