Austintown woman touts new cancer treatment

AUSTINTOWN — Geneva Peck’s health didn’t provide her many options for her cancer treatment.

She did, however, choose the relatively new stereotactic body radiation therapy when stage 1 cancer was found on the lower lobe of her right lung during a routine six-month check-up for her chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Surgery was not an option because it would have decreased lung capacity in her lung already damaged by COPD, doctors at the Cleveland Clinic told her.

As a result, Peck became the Cleveland Clinics’ 1,000th stereo-tactic body radiation therapy patient, a treatment option she said she wants to share with others.

“As we’ve been going through this journey and telling people about the radiation, we found so many people who have no idea this treatment exists, and how it can change their lives as it has for my family,” said Sammantha Bonacci, Peck’s granddaughter and a sophomore at Youngstown State University.

For the complete story, read Tuesday's Vindicator and Vindy.com