LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Dr. Michael Ferguson is one of the top pediatric cancer physicians in the country, and he's just made Louisville home.
Ferguson is the new chief of Norton Children's Cancer Institute and it's welcome news for countless families battling some of the more rare and aggressive forms of childhood cancer.
Cayden Baelz, a 13-year-old from Corydon, is one of them. WHAS11 News met him on the 7th floor of Norton Children's Hospital, a second home to patients battling cancer. Back in October, he was inpatient for a 5-day stay for chemo treatment. He hoped it would be one of his last rounds before he can call himself cancer free.
"It's not the funnest thing," Cayden said. "But it is what it is. I have to be up here if I want to get my cancer gone."
He was diagnosed with Ewing Sarcoma a year ago, in May, after suffering through months of leg pain. It's a rare bone cancer that can also occur in your soft tissue.
"As a nurse, an ER nurse, I've taken care of multiple oncology kids with those diagnoses. Never in a million years did I think we'd be dealing with something like that," Adrienne Baelz, Cayden's mom, said.
But there's good news for kids like Cayden today, that wasn't there years ago. The 5-year survival rate has improved from less than 20% decades ago to over 70% due to advancements in treatment.
And even better, Ferguson specializes in his specific type.
"It's a very devastating disease for families," Ferguson said. "Everyone who hears that diagnosis, the pulse in the room just drops. Being able to be on the journey to get them there and say, 'hey, this is what we're going to do, we're going to get your child well.'"
Ferguson made the move from Riley Children's in Indianapolis to Norton Children's in August and began seeing patients in September.
"Here in Louisville, we have great options, but with pediatric cancer, it's critically underfunded compared to adult cancers, not as many trials as adults," he said.
It's Ferguson's goal to change that, especially for kids battling sarcomas.
"When it metastasizes, it's very hard to treat and we don't cure a lot of those patients so my research before coming here was if we could look at tumor DNA and RNA to find patterns, for drugs to hit those patterns," Ferguson said.
As a parent, he treats every kid on this floor as if they were his own.
"I feel for these families here," he said. "I want to make it as comfortable and easy for them."
"Knowing this is something he's passionate about, it makes you feel good as a parent, knowing they're going to do everything they can that's best for his diagnosis," Adrienne said.
When Ferguson's not at their bedside, he's opening the doors to new clinical trials and working with fellow researchers on immunotherapy for brain tumors, that affect kids in Kentucky at a higher rate than most across the country. He said he's confident we can get to a cure rate of 100% in the near future.
"With research and driving more clinical trials, we can get there; I really believe that in my lifetime," Ferguson said. "Eighty percent of childhood cancer is cured, but 20% isn't. If we can get that, I will retire a very happy man."
These next few months will be critical to his team, as he reorganizes clinical services, with a focus on certain tumors.
Norton Children’s Cancer Institute serves more than 7,000 patients each year, treating all forms of pediatric cancer and blood disorders.
Ferguson is also the division chief of the University of Louisville School of Medicine Department of Pediatrics Division of Hematology, Oncology and Stem Cell Transplantation.
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