David Strutton: Beating the odds and kicking leukemia

	David Strutton, chair of the Department of Marketing and Logistics, fought leukemia and won, thanks to a woman who donated bone marrow.

David Strutton, UNT professor, just turned 4 on Oct. 30.

Strutton, who has been chair of the Department of Marketing and Logistics since he arrived at UNT in 2001, recently celebrated his fourth year of life after a bone marrow transplant.

"On that day in 1998, I received new bone marrow and a new chance at life," he says. "But it was all extremely challenging. My particular treatment is commonly called the ‘healing hell.'"

And the title is well-earned.

Strutton learned on Good Friday of 1997 of his rare form of leukemia, which attacks the blood-producing cells in his bone marrow. If a leukemia patient can find a matching donor for the transplant (which is the only known cure), then doctors proceed with the "healing hell." It uses extremely aggressive chemotherapy treatment in combination with three days of total body irradiation to kill the cancer by destroying the bone marrow, leaving the patient needing new marrow.

"This treatment is viewed as the last chance a cancer patient has to live," Strutton says. "I call it ‘going nuclear.' No one wants to use nuclear weapons against their enemy because the potential consequences are so severe, but sometimes there may be no other choice."

Before a patient can brave the dangers of the treatment, a marrow donor is required, but the chance of finding a match for a patient is rather low.

There were no matches in Strutton's family or in the national or international bone marrow data registries.

So he endured chemotherapy and daily injections of interferon for 14 months as part of an experimental treatment administered by M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. But that treatment failed. And when it seemed he might not make it, a miracle happened.

"Through what I think of as an act of God, a 22-year-old German woman joined the international data registry and was a perfect match," he says. "I was given a second chance, a new shot at life."

For seven years prior to his cancer, Strutton had served as a distinguished research professor and associate dean at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and he continued to teach while he battled cancer. He says his illness gave him a greater appreciation of the positive differences he could make in the lives of his students.

"For me, the joy of teaching is seeing the light bulb go on in their heads – it's when they get it," he says. "Occasionally, you get the chance to really make a difference in students' lives."

He loved writing, and after his leukemia was destroyed, he wrote a book called Lessons Learned, which offers insights to other cancer patients on the survival strategies he had used.

He says it was his family, especially his 12-year-old daughter Ariadne, who helped him most in getting through this difficult challenge.

"I survived because I wanted to live long enough to see my daughter grow up."

BY RUFUS COLEMAN rcoleman@unt.edu

Other featured articles in this issue:

• UNT regents approve property purchases
• Mean Green returning to New Orleans Bowl Dec. 17
• Art patron, philanthropist to speak at fall commencement
• About the commencement speaker
• Weather closing information
• SECC at UNT brings in more than $140,000
• Faculty Senate hears academic budget report, forecast for 2003 legislative session
• Staff Council chair encourages teamwork, spirit of cooperation
• Hobbits returning to theaters this holiday season
• Honors Day nomination forms due Dec. 14
• Think Green, It's Friday spirit contest winners

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