Welireg Made a von Hippel-Lindau Survivor Feel Like a ‘Medical Miracle’

Season 5, Episode 13,   Dec 15, 2022, 02:23 PM

After being diagnosed with von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) disease, a rare tumor disorder, Sean Korbitz spent most of his 20s and 30s hoping to make it to his 60. However, after starting a new medication, he is feeling more optimistic about having a “normal life span.”

For six months in 2007, Korbitz threw up every morning and his doctors had no idea why. Suspecting a pinched nerve in his neck, Korbitz’s doctors ordered the Colorado native MRIs for his head and neck.
Within a couple of hours, he was undergoing emergency surgery. The MRI revealed that Korbitz had a brain tumor that had been growing for six months.

The neurosurgeon performing the surgery decided to sequence the blood vessels that made up the tumor and diagnosed Korbitz VHL, an inherited disorder that affects approximately 10,000 people in the United States and Korbitz had no family history of the disease. Of note, patients with VHL disease are prone to developing tumors — both cancerous and non-cancerous — throughout their

When Sean Korbitz was a 20-year-old college student, his life trajectory changed with a rare cancer diagnosis, resulting in the removal of 40 tumors; fifteen years later, a new drug made him feel like a “medical miracle.”  
Subscribe
Next
Childhood Cancer Survivor Pays It Forward at the Same Hospital She Received Treatment
Top episodes