HOUSTON – Two men. Two stage 4 cancer diagnoses. Two separate journeys that began in the Netherlands, both leading to the same clinic in Houston’s Medical Center.
For Hans Lengers, the diagnosis was stage 4 colon cancer. For Gerrit van Noordenne, it was advanced, aggressive lung cancer. Both were told there were no more options. But both found hope thousands of miles from home at the Salem Oncology Center.
Van Noordenne and his wife Nathalie Poppeliers van Noordenne arrived in Houston after being told he wouldn’t survive to see his next birthday. “In Holland, I died in April,” he said, referencing the month doctors gave him to live. “We are very happy to have this second chance,” Poppeliers van Noordenne added. “This is how it feels.”
When the couple landed in Houston, van Noordenne could barely walk. “He couldn’t even go a few meters,” said his wife. “Now we’re going out to dinner again.”
Their turnaround began under the care of renowned oncologist Dr. Philip Salem.
For more than 55 years, Dr Salem has dedicated his life to cancer medicine, developing a groundbreaking treatment known as ICTriplex. Today he and his team at the Salem Oncology Center offer those fighting cancer renewed hope and a real chance at remission.
“There is no job more noble, more grand, than salvaging human life,” Dr. Salem told Houston Life reporter Melanie Camp.
ICTriplex is a combination therapy that is personalized to each patient and their specific cancer.
"We take patients who nobody else wants to treat because they are considered terminal and we give them this treatment. To our happy surprise, we found out that we can achieve 52 to 53% complete remission rate and like 35, 36% of a partial response rate. So this means. The complete remission rate plus the partial response is around 90% of the patients who are considered hopeless, they respond 90%. 50%, however, they respond with a complete remission, meaning that all evidence of disease disappear," Dr. Salem said on Houston Life.
Lengers and his wife Karen traveled to Houston after exhausting treatment options in Europe.
“In total, we are here four months with next week. So we had four cycles and this is the last week from the last treatment,” said Lengers.
At Salem Oncology Center, a unique aspect of each treatment plan is the integration of supportive care, designed to strengthen the body, helping patients tolerate treatment and maintain a better quality of life throughout their journey.
“Here, you have one bag of chemo,” Lengers explained, “but four or five bags of support—that keeps the side effects away.”
According to Salem, With IC triple X, the treatment is tailored to the specific patient and to the specific cancer.
“Patients who have exhausted standard and conventional treatments stand in front of a wall, and this wall is death,” Dr. Salem said. “We open a window on this wall so the patient doesn’t look at death—he looks at life. We give them hope.”
The results are changing not just medical outcomes, but lives. “Now we have a future again, I have a future again, together with a future and we get we can set up nice things and you have a life expectation again,” Lengers said.
Both families say they are grateful they discovered SalemOncology Center in time for a second chance at life.
“Take this chance,” Karen Lengers said. “Because it’s really worth it.”
To learn how ICTRiplex might work for you or your loved one call the team at Salem Oncology Center at 713-796-1221 or visit them online at salemoncology.com.