A point guard has done more to publicize this than my last 400 publications: Eye cancer

Derek Fisher showed up with his baby girl Tatum at the New York office of Dr. David Abramson at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center on Monday. The doctor was able to inject a strong anti-cancer drug into her eye’s blood vessels, probably killing the retinoblastoma (eye cancer) and saving her eye.

The following day, Derek, a point guard now in the playoffs with his Utah Jazz teammates, spoke at length about the family’s ordeal, generating publicity. Then he flew back to Salt Lake City, and helped his team win Game 2. “A very good point guard has done more to publicize this than my last 400 publications combined. It’s quite extraordinary,” Dr. Abramson said.

Advice for parent advocates: Use your contacts to spread the word about successful new treatments.

Read another of our celebrity patient advocate stories, or Peter May’s source story in today’s Boston Globe, “In the Bonus Situation: Fisher scored points for cancer treatment”.