Jan. 01--Cardinal Francis George has stopped taking an experimental drug because it "has not been effective" in his cancer treatment, the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese said in a statement Wednesday.
The cardinal, facing his third bout with cancer, was dropped from a clinical trial group being given an antibody drug after scans showed it had not contained or reduced his cancer, according to the statement.
"The cardinal will meet with his physicians at Loyola University hospital in January in order to discuss how best to address some of the side effects of his cancer, which so far has not spread to any vital organs," the archdiocese said. "He is at peace, but he counts on everyone's prayers that he might be of service to the Lord and his Church in the time left to him."
The archdiocese said physicians and others who were overseeing the trial "assured him that the information that they had gathered during his course of treatment will be of benefit to others."
Archdiocese spokeswoman Colleen Dolan said the drug was supposed to "get the immune system to kick in.''
"It was not having that outcome so they stopped it,'' Dolan said.
Dolan said she didn't think the decision was made by a specific person, but rather by, "government protocol.''
"This protocol was not working with him and so therefore he was no longer in the program,'' Dolan said.
The archdiocese announced in August that George, who turns 78 next month, had begun participating in the clinical trial of a new drug at the University of Chicago.
The trial involved immunotherapy, or treatments aimed at bolstering the body's natural defenses against cancer, according to Dr. Thomas Gajewski, leader of the immunology and cancer program at U. of C.'s Comprehensive Cancer Center.
George was initially diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2006. In August 2012, he learned that the disease had returned to his kidney and liver, according to the archdiocese.
The cancer had been in remission for more than a year when George revealed in March that the disease "is beginning to show signs of new activity" and he was facing a "more aggressive" round of chemotherapy."
"This is a difficult form of the disease," the cardinal wrote at the time. "And it will most probably eventually be the cause of my death."
The form of cancer that struck George in 2006, called carcinoma in situ, was relatively unusual, accounting for about 10 percent of bladder cancer cases. The tumor was considered superficial -- a flat growth limited to the wall of the bladder. But the cancer cells were of an aggressive type that could have spread rapidly to other parts of the body.
At the time, doctors did not believe the cancer had spread. But patients who have had bladder cancer are at increased risk for developing that cancer in their kidney or liver, outside doctors have told the Tribune.
