Keeping DJ alive: Why this 25-year-old man needs to go to America for cancer treatment

AT 25 years of age, DJ Hall should be having the time of his life. Instead, he’s facing the prospect that he might not live to see his next birthday.

After being diagnosed with leukaemia at 22, Hall has been in and out of remission three times. His best option at beating the disease now is a special — and expensive — treatment, only available in America.

“We thought it was the ‘flu, but I was diagnosed in August 2011 with leukaemia,” he tells news.com.au from his home in Brisbane.

“I went through chemotherapy and had a bone-marrow transplant from my sister Jacqui, but I had a relapse from that in 2012. We’ve been trying to gain long term remission since then, but it’s just never eventuated.

“In September 2013, I was given a year to live by doctors. But then I heard about this new treatment in the States, and now it seems like it is the last real chance for long term remission for me.”

DJ speaks about his cancer and treatment.

The treatment Mr Hall is referring to is known as CART19 or CTL019, a clinical trial of T cell therapy for patients with B cell cancers such as acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (DJ’s diagnosis), B cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. Immune cells called T cells are taken from a patient’s own blood, then are genetically modified to express a protein which will recognise and bind to cancerous B cells in the patient’s body. When the modified cells are put back into the body, they disperse to find the cancerous B cells, and as these new re-engineered cells multiply in the body, they attach to the cancerous B cells and kill them.

So far, clinical trials done by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania have produced remarkable results. Of the 27 patients participating in the trial, 24 patients went into a complete remission, and 18 of those have remained in remission.

When Mr Hall learnt this, he went straight to his doctor.

“A friend of mine alerted me to CART19 at the end of last year, and I took it to my doctor. He suggested we wait for a trial in Australia which kind of does the same thing, using a drug called Blinatumomab. I followed his advice and I stayed in Australia to do it first. I had three cycles of it. After the first cycle I went back into remission, but by the third I relapsed again. This was at the end of July this year.

“We went back to looking at CART19. My doctor was supportive of it, and there are two places which do it — one near New York, and one in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania. He said he’d get in touch with them, and see what happens. The people in Philadelphia came back and said yes, he’s eligible for this trial.

“Their financial counsellor got in touch with my doctor to discuss the financial implications, seeing as I have to go over to America for it. It will cost me US$600,000. But what choice do I have? I’ve exhausted every option in Australia.

“When I relapsed last September, my doctors said then that if I last a year, that’s pretty good. If I get this treatment, there’s more of a chance for me. But if I don’t, I just stay here and wait to die. I don’t want to do that.”

Indeed, waiting to die is not an option for Mr Hall. He not only has a plumbing career to return to, but life with his beautiful fiancé Stephanie, who he met while in remission in 2012.

“We met through my sister on a night out, we just hit it off, it was all really easy and it all went from there,” he says.

“We got engaged in February of this year. She’s stuck by me through it all. We are planning a wedding and buying a house, that kind of thing, but this treatment holds more importance, so that’s what we’re working towards first.

“I’d like to be over in America in three or four weeks. That would be ideal. So obviously, because of the cost, we are fundraising. At the moment we are $200,000 away from our target. We’re so close, we just need a little bit more.

“It’s been so amazing, the people who have been donating. A lot of family, a lot of friends. People that I maybe once played football with, people I can’t even remember have been donating. They all come out of the woodwork with these memories of me growing up or coaching them at football, and want to give me all the help they can get,” he says.
DJ’s friends and family have set up a donation page that simply reads ‘Keeping DJ alive.’ They’ve also run numerous events to raise money, including a fundraising bootcamp.

“We are fighting so hard to get him there within the next three weeks so any help is appreciated,” DJ’s sister Jacqui tells news.com.au. “We also have to feed and clothe and home him while overseas as there is no support over there for him.”

If you’d like to help DJ see his next birthday, visit his fundraising page.

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