Cole Owens is an amazing young man who battled the rare diagnosis of Desmoplastic Small

Round Cell Tumor (DSRCT) from 2006 to 2015.

Cole was in kindergarten. Healthy, active and brilliant—when his mother noticed a lump on the

side of his belly while rubbing it one night. After it did not go away within a few days, Laura took

Cole to the pediatrician. She agreed that it seemed ‘abnormal’ and recommended she take him

to get a scan to figure out what was causing it. An ultrasound at St. Louis Children’s Hospital led

to a CT scan and an admission to the pediatric oncology floor that night.

After 4 intensive months of inpatient chemotherapy, Cole’s local team deemed his case

inoperable. Laura had been given the name of a surgeon in New York by a family they met in

the hospital playroom whose daughter was dealing with the long-term effects of her own

pediatric cancer treatment. They shared that an amazing surgeon saved their daughter from a

rare pediatric sarcoma diagnosis, when the local doctors gave them no hope. So, Laura didn’t

hesitate to call the doctor in New York. Despite being a 26-year-old, now unemployed single

mother—they traveled to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital for Cole to have surgery. After a

complete resection in NYC by Dr. LaQuaglia in 2007 followed by whole abdominal radiation,

Cole remained cancer free for more than 3 years following. Despite all he had endured, he was

healthy, with no lasting side effects. Cole went on to skip a grade, win spelling bees, excel in

sports and participate in gifted and theater programs.

Despite life moving forward and Cole being happy and healthy, routine scans in September

2010 revealed two small spots of recurrence of DSRCT. At the recommendation of the team in

New York, they traveled to MD Anderson in Houston to develop a plan of attack. Cole was

treated in Houston from November 2010 to June 2013, in the compassionate and creative care

of oncologist Pete Anderson. Cole had HIPEC surgery, removing all new disease, and washing

the abdomen with heated chemo to attempt to kill microscopic disease. The 2 spots in the liver

were not considered operable but treated with embolization and targeted radiation. Cole

participated in a T cell study for over a year that allowed him good quality life, no side effects

and stable disease. Dr. Anderson’s expertise as well as his commitment to ‘what’s possible’

enabled Cole to be healthy, active, play sports and attend school through 2013. At that time,

surgery was attempted to remove part of Cole’s liver (and the inoperable tumor in it) to get him

cancer free for the 2 nd time at Dr. Anderson’s new facility in Charlotte, North Carolina. The

surgery was successful, but within a few weeks Cole was re-hospitalized and medically flown

back to Charlotte due to post-surgical complications. Those complications plagued his health

and kept both him and his family away from home, until finally a repair surgery was attempted in

June 2013. Additional, near fatal and ultimately irreparable complications arose, and Cole spent

the next several months in critical condition in the ICU. Despite all expectations, Cole continued

to survive and overcome into 2015 and was able to travel, make memories and return home to

St. Louis before he passed away in his mother’s arms on August 3, 2015.