Dr. John Burka (right) continues to be active — like biking with his son and granddaughter on a trip to London — while living with Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia. Receiving precision medicine for cancer care at the QEII helps Dr. Burka maintain an active, fulfilling lifestyle.
Advancing cancer care
As a retired professor of pharmacology at the University of Prince Edward Island, Dr. John Burka has long been interested in how drugs can be used to best treat diseases.
When he was diagnosed with Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia in 2018, a condition that turns some white blood cells into cancer cells, his interest became personal.
“It’s one of those cancers you’re lucky to have,” he says with a laugh. “You tend to die with it, rather than from it.”
Waldenstrom’s tends to grow slowly and may not produce symptoms for years. Those symptoms include fatigue, fever, weight loss, night sweats, numbness in the hands and feet, among other things.
Dr. Burka primarily experiences symptoms of fatigue and numbness. After his diagnosis, he realized that earlier in his career, when fatigue began to affect him, he had dismissed it. Now, he suspects that it may have been an early sign of the disease.
In Waldenstrom’s, cancer cells build up in bone marrow and crowd out healthy cells. The cancer cells make a protein that can build up in the blood. Too much of that protein can reduce blood flow in the body and cause other problems.
Dr. Mahmoud Elsawy is a hematologist at the QEII Health Sciences Centre. He treats a wide range of blood disorders and blood cancers, including Dr. Burka’s Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia.
“He’s one of our special patients. He’s been a strong advocate for new treatments,” Dr. Elsawy says.
“When we treat cancer, we have options like surgery, radiation therapy, and traditional chemotherapy, which attacks the cancer and everything else,” explains Dr. Elsawy. “Targeted therapies tend to work on a specific mutation or enzyme that’s very specific to the cancer cell and stops it from being dysfunctional.”
Dr. John Burka (right) continues to be active — like biking with his son and granddaughter on a trip to London — while living with Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia. Receiving precision medicine for cancer care at the QEII helps Dr. Burka maintain an active, fulfilling lifestyle.
In 2024, Dr. Burka was prescribed a new drug called Brukinsa, which offers a more targeted treatment for the cancer that should produce fewer side effects.
Dr. Elsawy explains that targeted therapies, a type of precision medicine, tend to produce fewer side effects because they only interact with the targeted area with a disease, rather than attacking anything that grows quickly like hair and nails..
“We’re looking into ways to combine it with other effective drugs so we can get the best of both. Combination treatments are important,” Dr. Elsawy says.
Kristopher Greek works for BeiGene, a Canadian company that prides itself on putting patients first. BeiGene develops cancer care medications, including Brukinsa, that offer more precise, targeted treatments.
“Targeted therapies allow patients to live longer, but also allows the patient to have a good quality of life,” Kristopher says.
Dr. Burka says he’s enjoying life and it’s important to stay active, despite the fatigue. He regularly takes long walks — recently taking 20,000 steps in a single day — and goes for bike rides.
Dr. Burka says patient support groups have been a lifeline for him as he tries to stay on top of the disease and treatments for it. Many gather on social media and one of his support groups holds a monthly video call where people update each other on their Waldenstrom’s journey.
“We encourage people to be their own advocate for their health,” he says. “Everybody has a different path that they’re going down.”
Kristopher agrees with Dr. Burka. He says that BeiGene’s mission, values and vision revolve around putting patients first. As part of that, they actively engage with patient support groups to help elevate their voices and empower their cancer journeys.
“We believe in actively involving patients and care partners in our quest to bring innovative and novel therapies to Canadian patients,” says Kristopher. “This helps us understand and align with the real-life needs and challenges that people living with cancer face.”
BeiGene also has a patient support program, dedicated to helping patients by providing personalized information and assistance to those living with and managing their cancer journey.
With QEII specialists like Dr. Elsawy, and new targeted therapies available, Nova Scotians facing a cancer diagnosis have more options — and more hope — than ever before.