Strawberry receives promising prognosis for recovery

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Posted: Friday October 09, 1998 06:30 PM

Darryl Strawberry underwent surgery at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital last Saturday to remove the 21/2-inch tumor, 16 inches of his large intestine and 36 abdominal lymph nodes AP

NEW YORK (AP) -- The doctors who removed a tumor from Darryl Strawberry's colon said Friday that the cancer had spread to only one lymph node, meaning his chances of surviving are better than good.

"I would say the odds are still very much in his favor," said Dr. Keith Lillemoe, oncology surgeon at Johns Hopkins Colon Cancer Center in Baltimore. "It's not unrealistic to say he'll be back playing next season."

American Cancer Society statistics show that 65 percent of black men with the New York Yankee outfielder's type of cancer are still alive five years after being diagnosed. The rate is slightly higher, 70 percent, for white men.

Lillemoe and other experts warned not to read too much into those statistics, calling them broad-based, general and more than a decade old.

"I really don't like trotting out statistics," Lillemoe said. "You cannot really generalize that one person is the same as a group that takes into account thousands of patients with varying degrees of the disease."

Strawberry underwent surgery at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital last Saturday to remove the 2 1/2-inch tumor, 16 inches of his large intestine and 36 abdominal lymph nodes.

The baseball player is considered to have stage three cancer, which means a malignancy was found outside of the original tumor. But there was no evidence the cancer had spread beyond the one lymph node.

"That's very favorable news," said Dr. Bernard Levine, vice president for cancer prevention and professor of medicine at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. "Although it's not good to have involvement in any lymph node, it's certainly better to have it in only one out of 36."

Doctors at Columbia-Presbyterian said Strawberry will likely be released Sunday and will undergo drug chemotherapy. Normal treatment lasts about six months.

Strawberry's good physical condition and the fact that he can begin chemotherapy treatments right away will help, said Lillemoe.

About 100,000 Americans are diagnosed each year with colon cancer, the third deadliest of the cancer killers. But the disease is rare among people as young as the 36-year-old Strawberry.

Strawberry overcame a cocaine addiction and was one of the top power hitters this season for the Yankees, who are playing in the American League Championship series without him.  

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