ROYAL OAK, Mich. – It was a moment of pure joy, 15 years in the making.
When Marie Hindee of Shelby Township saw the results of her first scan after undergoing a cutting edge new therapy for her blood cancer, she started dancing for joy.
“I said, ‘Dr. Jaiyesimi, did you see my PET scan?” I was so excited. And I said, ‘We’ve got to do our dance.’ So we started dancing in the waiting room," laughed Hindee.
Months later, Hindee is still dancing with her doctor.
“Every time I see him, we do a little jig about it, because that’s our thing. He’s so happy. He’s just very happy for me,” said Hindee.
Dr. Ishmael Jaiyesimi is the chief of medical oncology/hematology at Corewell Health. He shares in Hindee’s joy.
“To be honest with you, that’s all I wish for every time I wake up. When I see a patient get better, that is it for me. That’s everything,” said Jaiyesimi. “To see her now is a joy for all of us, truly. I can’t even say a word to describe how happy I am.”
It’s been a very long fight. Hindee’s battle with blood cancer began in 2010.
“I was 62, and I started having a lot of problems with a lot of fatigue and some lymph node swelling and just didn’t feel well,” remembered Hindee.
Bloodwork lead to more testing and a stunning diagnosis -- chronic lymphocytic leukemia and small lymphocytic lymphoma. CLL and SLL are slow-growing cancers of B-lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell that helps fight infections in the body.
Doctors believe Hindee was suffering for years before she was diagnosed.
“I just endured. You get tired when you work and you, you just kind of, this is your life. You don’t think about it being something wrong, and you just kind of roll with it in your daily life and not even know that you’ve got cancer,” said Hindee. “I started out with chemotherapy for six months and that gave me a few months of, I don’t know, just partial remission. I was stable. Then after that, when it all came back again, I had to have chemo again. So I had another round of chemo, different drugs. And the same thing happened.”
But Hindee was lucky. A new drug had just come out for her cancer, a more targeted treatment.
And when that drug stopped working, there was another one.
“That’s my story really. A lot of good drugs came out during the time I had it, and I’ve had good results with most of them. They don’t last because cancer has a job to do, and it seems to do a good job on me,” said Hindee.
But again, science was advancing too. Hindee’s doctors proposed another option.
“In March of 2024, the Food and Drug Administration made an accelerated approval for one of the CAR T-cell therapy, called liso-cel,” said Jaiyesimi.
CAR T-cell therapy takes a patient’s own immune cells -- called T cells -- from a patient’s blood and ships them to a special lab. The cells are then modified to add a new receptor called a CAR. That receptor allows the cells to recognize cancer cells and destroy them. The engineered CAR T-cells are then multiplied to create millions and sent back to the patient.
“I got them back in a month. I went in the hospital after the chemo. I had three sessions of chemo and two days later I was in the hospital getting infused with my white cells,” said Hindee.
Hindee was the first patient with chronic lymphocytic leukemia to receive this treatment at Corewell Health Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak.
Jaiyesimi said the treatment has several advantages.
“The biggest advantage is number one, if we are lucky, we get a high remission rate,” said Jaiyesimi. “Most of the remission rates can be durable for a long time, and the most advantage is just one time. After that, you’re done.”
There are potential side effects.
“People may have like flu-like symptoms, ache, fever, chills, low blood pressure, increased heart rate, flushing, and fatigue. And we can take care of that now with medicine and supportive measures,” said Jaiyesimi.
Some patients also experience confusion or seizures.
“Knocks your socks off. But, you know, it takes time to get stronger because you get really weak. But it was worth it,” said Hindee. “I still do not have cancer. During my recovery time, my husband and I took a wonderful trip to Hawaii that we’ve always wanted to do.”
Hindee is grateful for all of the treatments that have kept her here with her husband Michael and their two daughters and four grandchildren.
“Fifteen years, they were all little and now they’re grown up. I got to see them grow up,” said Hindee. “There’s just so many things in life that you miss if you don’t try. I’ve always had hope and I feel like I’ve been guided well by the doctors.”
CAR T-cell therapy is primarily used to treat blood cancers like certain leukemias, lymphomas, and multiple myeloma that have relapsed or are resistant to other therapies, but research is expanding into solid tumors like breast, lung, melanoma, and pancreatic cancers, with promising early results in clinical trials.
Corewell Health Beaumont is excited to have this option for patients.
“The big advantage is, it’s in our backyard. It’s in patients’ backyard,” said Jaiyesimi.
Because the therapy is so new, bo one knows how long Hindee’s remission will last.
“We’ve seen people, six years now, that are still in remission after this therapy. We do hope she will be one of those too,” said Jaiyesimi. “What tomorrow brings, we don’t know. But today, we’re happy.”
“I’m very lucky. I really am. I just count my lucky stars that I was able to do it,” said Hindee.
She hopes her story can bring hope to others battling serious health problems.
“I hope people can kind of look at this and say, you know, ‘Don’t give up because things change all the time in medicine,’” said Hindee. “I always thought maybe, maybe if I can make it to 80, that would be great. My doctor said, ‘Oh no, you better raise the bar because you’re going to be here for a while.’”