Allan Wolfram never would have met his grandson if it werenāt for the treatment he received through clinical trials at BC Cancer-Ā鶹AV.
It was one of several stories the audience heard at an event that saw the Bannister family of Ā鶹AV donate $1.5 million to the BC Cancer Foundation.
āIām certainly grateful to the staff here, they basically saved my life,ā Wolfram added.
Wolfram had esophageal cancer which had spread and caused a tumour in his brain.
Weeks after treatment the tumour shrunk and the cancer in his esophagus was gone.
āSo yeah, clinical trials are important,ā he said.
Wolframās story resonated with the Bannister family.
āOur family has been touched by cancer,ā said Chad Bannister, Bannister Automotive Group. āMy grandpa passed away from prostrate cancer, my momās dad had colon cancer and survived, my wife had thyroid cancer, Iāve had skin cancer.ā
Bannister said some of his employees and their families are also dealing with cancer.
āIf weāre in a position to help make that treatment better and let our staff and let the community focus more on health, then thatās what weāre doing.ā
Bannisterās father, Lyn, added that stories such as Wolframās need to be heard.
āAll this money is being spent on cancer research and people think nothing is happening and you come to an event like this and you realize there are things happening. You listen to Allan, I mean thatās a helluva story. People donāt hear them enough I donāt think.ā
The Bannisterās donation will go towards creating a new, state-of-the-art systemic therapy suite at BC Cancer-Ā鶹AV.
It will help meet the growing demand for cancer treatments in the Interior, and provide the infrastructure to bring early phase clinical trials to Ā鶹AV for the first time.
While BC Cancer-Ā鶹AV does conduct some clinical trials, once the therapy suite is operating, it opens to door to more and varied trials.
āThe earlier clinical trials, we have to be really careful about what impacts they might have on the patients who are participating, so you need better monitoring capability,ā said Dr. Ross Halperin, executive medical director.
The new therapy suite will have that capability, he explained.
āThe data from patients like Allan will inform us and make a therapy that wasnāt available as standard therapy before, and a clinical trial proves that it ought to be standard therapy.ā
Dr. Halperin added that the Bannister familyās gift will have an incredible impact on how patients will be treated in Ā鶹AV.
Once completed, the therapy suite will serve cancer patients in the Interior.
āIf there are trials that are only available in Ā鶹AV, people from all across the province will then be travelling to access those treatments,ā said Pardeep Khrod, associate vice-president, of BC Cancer Foundation.
The donation is the largest gift to date for the $6.1 million project.
Construction is expected to start in spring 2024 and take approximately 18 months.
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