Lung Cancer: Keith's Survivor Story

What happened, in summary

Keith Medovich’s lung cancer had been cured more than a decade earlier with high-dose chemotherapy and radiation, but late effects from treatment later threatened his breathing. By 2015, scarring from his 2003 radiation treatment had severely narrowed parts of his trachea and bronchus, a condition called tracheal stenosis. Keith became so short of breath that he could not work, walk to the mailbox, mow the grass or lie down to sleep. Over the years, Cleveland Clinic interventional pulmonologist Dr. Sonali Sethi performed about 30 airway stenting procedures, sometimes only 2 weeks apart. Standard stents helped only briefly because Keith’s airway was twisted, distorted and narrowed to a tiny opening. Twice, he nearly died while his wife rushed him to Cleveland Clinic. During one episode, he was admitted to the ICU with acute respiratory failure from mucus plugging until emergency bronchoscopy cleared the airway. With other options exhausted, Dr. Sethi and Dr. Thomas Gildea obtained compassionate-use approval for a custom Y-shaped silicone airway stent made from a 3D-printed mold. In 2018, they removed Keith’s old stent and deployed the patient-specific stent through rigid bronchoscopy. As of January 2020, Keith remained cancer-free and could breathe, mow the grass and work again, with stent maintenance every 6 to 12 months.