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How a regular ultrasound to check on her pregnancy revealed a big health issue
Allison Misconin was told that the ovarian cyst spotted early in her pregnancy was normal — but during her 20-week ultrasound, her doctor labeled the mass as “suspicious.” She was told her next stop should be an oncologist’s office.
The 28-year-old, who was already versed in the world of cancer treatment from her work as an oncology social worker at the Cleveland Clinic, immediately thought of her unborn baby. Her yet-to-be-born son was developing well and moving regularly, and fear for his safety was “the only thing going through my head,” she told CBS News.
“I don’t want to say I didn’t care, but I didn’t care how it would affect me. I was only concerned with the health and safety of my baby,” Misconin said.
For treatment, she turned to the Cleveland Clinic, where she already worked providing resources and support to cancer patients. During her first appointment with Dr. Robert Debernardo, the head of the department of gynecologic oncology at the Cleveland Clinic, he outlined a plan to surgically remove the mass so it could be biopsied.
Hearing about a surgery at that stage of her pregnancy “terrified” her, but just days later, she was in the operating room, ready to have the mass removed in a minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery. While the experience was scary, she said, it may have saved her life.
Allison Misconin
Treating ovarian cancer during pregnancy
DeBernardo said that it’s generally best to conduct the “least amount of medical intervention possible” during a pregnancy, but in cases like Misconin’s, surgery is necessary to deal with cancer before it can spread.
Once again, the timing of Misconin’s pregnancy worked in her favor: DeBernardo said that typically, surgery isn’t done during the first trimester because the fetus is too fragile, but doing the procedure too late in pregnancy can also complicate matters. It’s best to do the procedure between 14 and 20 weeks, he said. Misconin was at the end of that window when the mass was determined to be suspicious, he said, but the procedure could still be done laparoscopically, which results in a smaller incision and shorter recovery time.
“It was sort of serendipitous that we found this,” DeBernardo said.
The mass was successfully removed, and confirmed to be cancerous. The ovary that the mass was on was also removed, along with its corresponding fallopian tube. Misconin was then induced at 37 weeks, giving birth to a healthy baby boy named Thomas.
“(The day Thomas was born) was the happiest day of my life,” Misconin said. “During this pregnancy, I was obviously so happy, and then that happiness really got taken away after this diagnosis, and it got traded in with anxiety and fear. So when I actually had my son, all of those anxieties and fears just kind of washed away.”
Allison Misconin
A second surgery found no other traces of cancer in her body, which meant the surgery had removed the mass before it could metastasize and spread. Misconin said learning she was cancer-free was the “second-greatest day of her life.”
Early detection of ovarian cancer
Dr. Deanna Gerber, a gynecologic oncologist at NYU Langone who was not involved in Misconin’s care, said that the finding of the mass was akin to a “guardian angel looking out” for her.
“It was really early stage. That is extremely rare, and she got very lucky,” Gerber said.
Typically, the disease is found in a more advanced stage, Gerber said, which makes treating it much more difficult. There is no screening test for ovarian cancer, and early warning signs of the condition include vague, common symptoms like abdominal discomfort or bloating. DeBernardo said that for someone like Misconin, it’s even easier to write those symptoms off as part of pregnancy.
“There’s nothing that really alerts women with an ovarian cancer to to say ‘I need to go get checked out,’ because there’s nothing different,” Gerber said.
Between 70 and 80% of ovarian cancer patients are at stage III or IV of the illness by the time they are diagnosed, the MD Anderson Cancer Center says online. For most ovarian cancer patients, this also means the cancer has already metastasized and spread to other parts of the body by the time it’s detected, DeBernardo said. At that point, survival rates are poor, according to the American Cancer Society: Only between 30 and 44% of those patients live more than five years.
Pregnancy after ovarian cancer
Beyond having a healthy child and being cancer-free, Misconin wanted to prioritize preserving her fertility and leaving the door open for more children later on. She and DeBernardo spoke about it early in her treatment journey, and during the surgery, he was able to confirm that the cancer had not spread to the other side of her reproductive organs and leave them untouched.
Learning that she could still have children after the cancer and surgery brought a “tremendous sense of relief,” Misconin said.
There are no risks with becoming pregnant again after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer during pregnancy, DeBernardo and Gerber both said. DeBernardo said that Misconin would be carefully monitored during future pregnancies, and that her care team would continue to keep a close eye on her remaining ovary to ensure no new cancers emerge.
Misconin said she’s eager to carry on with her life and continue to grow her family.
“An ovarian cancer diagnosis can be very scary,” she said. “A lot of people just automatically think there’s no treatment and there’s no hope. And I want people to know you can have an ovarian cancer diagnosis, and live a fulfilling life after that.”
Allison Misconin
A passenger successfully landed a small plane on Friday after the pilot had a medical emergency, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
The twin-engine Beechcraft King Air 90 was traveling from Henderson Executive Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada to Monterey Regional Airport in California, with a pilot and one other person on board, the FAA said.
The pilot suffered an unspecified medical emergency while flying, the FAA said, forcing the passenger to take the controls and make an emergency landing at Meadows Field Airport in Bakersfield, California.
The Kern Fire Department told CBS News affiliate KBAX that firefighters were called to a report of a medical emergency on the plane. The pilot was reported to be “incapacitated,” the fire department said. Firefighters saw the plane approach and land safely, then “chased” the plane down the runway in emergency vehicles to meet it.
The FAA did not release the passenger or pilot’s identities nor give an update on the pilot’s condition. The pilot was taken to an area hospital by ambulance. The passenger did not report any injuries.
The FAA and the National Transportation Security Board will investigate the incident, the FAA said.
Congolese authorities began vaccination against mpox on Saturday, nearly two months after the disease outbreak that spread from Congo to several African countries and beyond was declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization.
The 265,000 doses donated to Congo by the European Union and the U.S. were rolled out in the eastern city of Goma in North Kivu province, where hospitals and health workers have been overstretched, struggling to contain the new and possibly more infectious strain of mpox.
Congo, with about 30,000 suspected mpox cases and 859 deaths, accounts for more than 80% of all the cases and 99% of all the deaths reported in Africa this year. All of the Central African nation’s 26 provinces have recorded mpox cases. Officials in Congo previously told CBS News that they’ve struggled to diagnose patients and provide basic care in the vast country of 100 million people, where a fragile, under-resourced healthcare system is also burdened by the stigma associated with the virus.
Although most mpox infections and deaths recorded in Congo are in children under age 15, the doses being administered are only meant for adults and will be given to at-risk populations and front-line workers, Health Minister Roger Kamba said this week.
“Strategies have been put in place by the services in order to vaccinate all targeted personnel,” Muboyayi ChikayaI, the minister’s chief of staff, said as he kicked off the vaccination.
Moses Sawasawa / AP
At least 3 million doses of the vaccine approved for use in children are expected from Japan in the coming days, Kamba said.
Mpox, also known as monkeypox, had been spreading mostly undetected for years in Africa before the disease prompted the 2022 global outbreak that saw wealthy countries quickly respond with vaccines from their stockpiles while Africa received only a few doses despite pleas from its governments.
However, unlike the global outbreak in 2022 that was overwhelmingly focused on gay and bisexual men, mpox in Africa is now being spread via sexual transmission as well as through close contact among children, pregnant women and other vulnerable groups, Dr. Dimie Ogoina, the chair of WHO’s mpox emergency committee, recently told reporters.
More than 34,000 suspected cases and 866 deaths from the virus have been recorded across 16 countries in Africa this year. That is a 200% increase compared to the same period last year, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
A lack of diagnostic materials and basic medicines to treat the virus, which can improve survival rates, have also hampered efforts to contain the outbreak, and access to vaccines remains a challenge.
Moses Sawasawa / AP
The continent of 1.4 billion people has only secured a commitment for 5.9 million doses of mpox vaccines, expected to be available from October through December, Dr. Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa CDC, told reporters last week. Congo remains a priority, he said.
At the vaccination drive in Goma, Dr Jean Bruno Kibunda, the WHO representative, warned that North Kivu province is at a risk of a major outbreak due to the “promiscuity observed in the camps” for displaced people, as one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis caused by armed violence unfolds there.
The news of the vaccination program brought relief to many in Congo, especially in hospitals that had been struggling to manage the outbreak. Doctors with several charities working in the country have told CBS News they’re overstretched and short on supplies, even having to use tents and mattresses on the floor of makeshift isolation wards to treat a constant influx of patients.
“If everyone could be vaccinated, it would be even better to stop the spread of the disease,” said Dr. Musole Mulambamunva Robert, the medical director of Kavumu Hospital, one of the mpox treatment centers in eastern Congo.
Eastern Congo has been beset by conflict for years, with more than 100 armed groups vying for a foothold in the mineral-rich area near the border with Rwanda. Some have been accused of carrying out mass killings.
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