Lviv clinic specializes in treating children suffering from cancer, leukemia (12/03/00)

Lviv clinic specializes in treating children suffering from cancer, leukemia

by Alex Kuzma

LVIV - In 1990, at the height of the non-violent movement for Ukrainian independence, the Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund approached the regional health minister in Lviv with a radical proposal. The CCRF urged Dr. Zinovii Kryvoruchko to recruit a specialized team of progressive young doctors to take over the abandoned Communist Party hospital on Dnistrovska Street, once reserved for the Soviet elite, and to convert it into a specialized medical center for children suffering from cancer and leukemia.

The proposal was the brainchild of Dr. Zenon Matkiwsky, a New Jersey-based surgeon, and his wife, Nadia. As co-founders of the CCRF, they had returned to Ukraine with a dream to create a hospital that could become a model for the transformation of a medical system that had been shattered by decades of Soviet neglect and mismanagement.

At first the proposal met fierce resistance. Health officials in other cities turned down similar offers to form partnerships with Western relief agencies. But in a few months the proposal captured the imagination of Dr. Kryvoruchko and other leaders of the Lviv medical community. They assembled a team of visionary young specialists, including Dr. Orest Sozansky, Dr. Yarema Voznytsia, Dr. Theophil Pidlesetsky and Dr. Oleksander Myndiuk. In September 1990, amid great public excitement, the Lviv Regional Children's Specialized Clinic was born.

The LRCSC celebrated its 10th anniversary on September 22 with a gala dinner and testimonial concert that drew hundreds of local dignitaries, as well as the families of children who have survived illnesses once considered untreatable or terminal.

The CCRF's co-founder and president, Dr. Matkiwsky, was among the guests of honor from the United States. He presented Dr. Myndiuk, the chief doctor of the LRCSC, with a special plaque and congratulated all members of the medical staff for their outstanding achievements, their professionalism and their strong commitment to their vision.

Over the past 10 years, the Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund provided more than $5 million of medical aid to the LRCSC. Among the tons of supplies delivered aboard CCRF's earlier airlifts were a complete surgery wing, sophisticated blood chemistry analyzers, an ultrasound machine, Ukraine's first flow cytometer, a large volume of cancer medication and an electrocardiogram.

Thanks to a grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the CCRF was able to provide a full protocol of chemotherapeutic agents for combating leukemia and non-Hodgkins lymphoma. In later years, the CCRF delivered an ambulance funded by a grant from John Deere & Co. that arrived together with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton during her historic goodwill mission to Ukraine in 1997.

The LRCSC has also received substantial support from the Ukrainian National Women's League of America, which provided sophisticated diagnostic equipment and reagents, and the Emergency Medical Aid to Ukraine project affiliated with the Ukrainian American Youth Association (SUM) that provided on-site training in new surgical techniques.

The confidence and resources that Western aid organizations have invested in the Lviv Hospital have been amply justified, as the LRCSC has become the envy of many hospitals in Eastern Europe. The clinic's biochemistry laboratory, renamed posthumously after CCRF's late vice-president, Dr. Volodymyr Hordynsky, has been certified as the most accurate and most advanced diagnostic facility of its kind in Eastern Europe by an international team of experts based in Vienna.

To ensure that the LRCSC's staff was properly trained to use the blood analyzers delivered by the CCRF, Dr. Hordynsky arranged for special training programs at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and the University of Pittsburgh. Several doctors and laboratory technicians studied in the United States under the CCRF's auspices. All of these doctors returned to Ukraine, and several still work at the LRCSC, including the laboratory director, Dr. Andriy Petrukh. The LRCSC has now become a training center for physicians and biochemists from across Ukraine.

Dr. Myndiuk and his staff are quick to point out that, for all the improvements in the hospital's infrastructure, the achievements that really count are the recovery rates of children. Here, too, the founders and sponsors have reason to be proud and optimistic about the potential for further improvement. After eight years of careful monitoring, the LRCSC reports that even for some of the most dreaded diseases, remission and recovery rates now rival Western standards. For example: for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, survival rates have risen to 77 percent; for non-Hodgkins lymphoma to 82 percent; and for Hodgkins lymphoma, to 90 percent. Even in the treatment of bone marrow cancers and neuroblastomas, the clinic has achieved long-term remission in, respectively, 40 percent and 64 percent of its patients, and 81 percent of all patients stricken with nephroblastomas.

"Certainly, we would like to reduce mortality to nil," said Dr. Myndiuk, "but even the finest American hospitals are struggling to overcome these deadly diseases, and we are greatly encouraged by the progress we have made. There is a sizeable group of our children who were once given very bleak prognoses - six or less months to live - and who are now attending colleges and universities with a clean bill of health."

The LRCSC has also become an incubator for important cancer research and innovative treatment techniques. The medical staff has published over 118 articles in medical journals, including 32 in Western peer-reviewed publications. Several LRCSC doctors who received training or stipends through the CCRF were invited to present their findings at international conferences in pediatric oncology.

Although there was much cause for celebration, the September 22 gala was also tinged with sadness. Besides the children who fell victim to disease, some of the pioneers of the Lviv Regional Children's Specialized Clinic have passed away. Among them is the brilliant young geneticist Dr. Orest Sozansky, who died in a tragic automobile accident during a medical training conference in Tunisia. Dr. Hordynsky, a highly respected innovator in the field of biochemistry and the chief strategist, had enabled the CCRF to establish the model biochemistry laboratory at the LRCSC that has since been renamed in his memory. More recently, Vyacheslav Chornovil, the former Lviv Oblast chairman who presided over the dedication ceremonies of the LRCSC, a legendary political prisoner and candidate for president of Ukraine, died in an accident that raised suspicions of foul play.

Despite these tragic losses, the hospital at 27 Dnistrovska St. remains a shining beacon overlooking the hills of Lviv. The LRCSC has shown the potential for radical improvements in health care that can be achieved with aid from the West, while relying on the talent and the initiative of native doctors and health care providers who are truly committed to long-term reform.

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Some of the successes of the Lviv clinic have been documented in a four-part news series broadcast on WJW television in Cleveland and in a news report published in The State, an Illinois-based newspaper. To obtain copies or excerpts, or to learn about the CCRF's other partner hospitals in Dnipropetrovsk, Lutsk, Poltava, Rivne or other cities, readers may contact the CCRF at 272 Old Short Hills Road, Short Hills, NJ 07078; telephone, (973) 376-5140.

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