Vitals Spotlight – We Give the Doctor an Exam

Dr. George Fisher

Patrick Swayze succumbed to a deadly bout of metastatic cancer. Swayze was a Texas-born Hollywood movie actor whose background in ballet and gymnastics ironically gave him a physique well-suited for his roles as hunky love interest or macho action film hero. He never surpassed the popularity of his earnest, romantic blockbusters “Dirty Dancing” (1987) and “Ghost” (1990), but after suffering from alcoholism, and removing himself from Hollywood altogether, he seemed to regain new perspective that would raise the bar for his acting future. And if nothing else, his utterance of the line, “Nobody puts Baby in the corner,” from “Dirty Dancing,” virtually guaranteed big screen immortality.

His struggle with alcoholism may of been his mortality. Dr. Jeffrey Hardacre, assistant professor of surgery at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and attending surgeon at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio, told FOXNews:

“There are risk factors for metastatic cancer including smoking, heavy drinking, and in some cases, people with a genetic predisposition are most at risk for pancreatic cancer.”

Patrick Swayze (exposay.com)

Patrick Swayze was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in late January 2008 and has been undergoing chemotherapy and other treatments at the Stanford University Medical Center. A Reuters article in March of 2008 reported that Swayze’s personal physician Dr. George Fisher said:

“Patrick has a very limited amount of disease and he appears to be responding well to treatment thus far.”

His medical condition rapidly deteriorated but Swayze still defied the odds in many ways – living for almost two years with this extremely deadly form of cancer. During that time, he put together a memoir with his wife and even started filming the new crime drama “The Beast,” in which he refused to take painkillers because he was worried it would affect his performance.

Dr. Jeffrey Hardacre remarked:

“If you were to look at statistics — the prognosis that is given to most patients with metastatic cancer is usually three to six months. It’s certainly has been described for people to live longer than a year — but this is outside of the norm. Most people with metastatic pancreatic cancer will not live longer than a year.  No doubt that it is a bad disease to have — but you’ve got to look at this like the glass is half full and not half empty.”

And it seems Swayze did just that — living life to the fullest right until the very end.

Vitals.com has more information on Dr. Jefferey Hardacre and Dr. George Fisher