Following some discomfort, Natalia underwent a colonoscopy in February of 2022. She was officially diagnosed with colon cancer after the procedure. Her doctors also believed that the cancer may be hereditary in nature because Natalia’s mother had uterine cancer. Additional genetic testing also confirmed that she had Lynch Syndrome, a genetic condition that greatly increases a person’s chance of developing cancer, including colon cancer.

After the diagnosis, she underwent tumor removal surgery at Dana-Farber, and then started on a chemotherapy and immunotherapy combination treatment. Immunotherapy is a newer type of cancer treatment that allows the body’s own immune system to recognize and destroy cancer cells. She had been traveling back and forth from Seattle to Boston for treatment, which she completed in June. Today,
she is cancer-free. In her free time, Natalia enjoys going to museums and shops, like Newbury Street when she’s in Boston. This visit is her daughter’s first time coming to see Boston! Natalie also has a master’s degree in fashion and is in the process of opening her own fashion business in Seattle.

Dr. Yurgelun is a gastrointestinal medical oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute affiliated with both the Gastrointestinal Cancer Center and the Cancer Genetics and Prevention Program. He has a longstanding special interest in studying the diagnosis, phenotypes, and management of patients with Lynch syndrome and other hereditary gastrointestinal cancer syndromes. His current research includes studying the benefits and limitations of using
widespread multi-gene panel testing – rather than criteria-based targeted genetic testing – in the evaluation of patients at risk for hereditary cancer syndromes.