Quebec patient cancer-free after ‘miracle’ treatment saves life

Alex Villalta is counting his lucky stars after what’s being described as a miracle medical treatment that saved his life.

The Laval, Que., businessman’s journey started in 2021 when his doctor, who’s also his client, showed up at his store and noticed something by chance.

“I was standing right here when Dr. Bannon saw me and he says, ‘You lost too much weight,’” Villalta explained, standing at a counter in his store where he sells decorative tiles.

Following his physician’s advice, Villalta had tests done and got the bad news. He had leiomyosarcoma, an extremely rare abdominal cancer. He had a 4.4-kilogram tumour and the disease had spread to his liver.

“It was devastating news at the beginning,” said the 66-year-old, adding that doctors gave him 12 to 18 months to live.

Then things got more complicated after surgery and chemotherapy at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) to treat the cancer, explained surgical oncologist Dr. Sinziana Dumitra, who treated Villalta.

“Unfortunately, the disease in the liver was much more widespread than expected,” she told Global News.

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But Villalta has a reputation that, according to his son Jesse Villalta, defined his father’s approach going forward.

“I’ve always said he’s stubborn in the best way, and it really paid off in this case,” the son laughed.

Dumitra said the elder Villalta decided he was going to fight.

“Alex, being the man that he is, he told me, ‘Doctor, I will beat this and I will be here at least in five years from now,’” Dumitra recalled, “even though that’s not what the data shows for patients that have metastatic leiomyosarcoma.”

She said the team had to think outside the box and came up with the idea to try a procedure normally used to treat colon cancer that has metastasized to the liver, called Y90 radioembolization, to get rid of the remaining cancer cells in Villalta’s liver.

She said it’s a novel approach to treating a sarcoma-type cancer, and pointed out that there was no guarantee it would work.

“He’s a miracle,” Dumitra said, but noted that approaches like this are becoming more common — re-tasking treatments that already exist for more rare cancers.

She also stressed the importance of funding from hospital foundations that allows the development of teams with the expertise to treat such things as rare cancers.

“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for [Cedars Cancer Foundation] money,” she told Global News. “I went and studied in Italy and did a second fellowship just in sarcoma to be able to deliver this kind of care.”

Foundation spokesperson Michèle Laforest explained that the organization exists to fund cancer education and care at the MUHC.

“The funding that we provide allows doctors the flexibility to conduct more research, conduct more clinical trials, to go out and get advanced training,” she stated.

Villalta is now cancer-free and is grateful to his medical team and his family.

“The next step with my family is, I hope I can live and take my grandkids to Disneyland,” he smiled. “They want to go to Disneyland.”

He will be monitored from time to time to make sure he remains that way.

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