Chemo is effective — when used early

If no cancer shows up in blood tests and imaging scans, does that mean there is no cancer? Not necessarily, say medical experts. With some types of cancer, including Ewing's sarcoma — with which 12-year-old Utahn Parker Jensen has been diagnosed — there's a strong likelihood that cancer cells remain.

Primary Children's Medical Center can't discuss Parker's case or proposed treatment because of federal medical privacy laws. Several pediatric oncologists contacted by the Deseret Morning News declined, noting they had not seen his medical records and if they had, they, too, would be bound by privacy rules.

But Dr. Stephen Prescott, executive director of the Huntsman Cancer Institute, talked about the type of chemotherapy that is at the heart of the ongoing battle over what treatment Parker needs. It's called adjuvant chemotherapy and is used to, hopefully, kill errant cancer cells that remain in the body when a tumor is removed.

Treatment for Parker has again become a topic of public concern and discussion after the boy's court-appointed guardian ad litem released medical records Friday that confirm that Parker indeed may have Ewing's sarcoma.

The Deseret Morning News also learned Saturday that Parker's parents, Daren and Barbara Jensen, met for about two hours Friday with several legislators at the State Capitol to lay out their side of Parker's story from beginning to end.

In attendance at the Friday meeting was Stephen Stone, campaign strategist for gubernatorial hopeful Sen. Parley Hellewell, R-Orem. Stone said the Jensens want legislators to at least change a provision in state law that allows doctors to use their authority toward taking a child out of a family's home. The Jensens told lawmakers, according to Stone, that they don't see a reason to "hop" from disputed diagnosis into chemotherapy, a stance that goes against advice in the reports released Friday.

Also Saturday, the Jensens fired back via a family statement released to the media. "We are currently reviewing the latest findings and considering what treatment options we need to undertake," the statement reads. The Jensens ask for time to do that without fear that their son will be forcibly removed from their home.

The parents had announced Thursday that their child was cancer-free; the contradictory medical reports were released Friday.