Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, August 3, 1995                   TAG: 9508030049
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WITHOUT SURGERY, SURVIVAL PROGNOSIS NOT GOOD FOR MANTLE

Unless Mickey Mantle's doctors change their minds and decide on more surgery, the slugger probably has less than a year to live, a specialist said Wednesday.

Mantle's doctors at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas discovered several cancerous spots on his right lung during a follow-up exam to his June 8 liver transplant. He has an aggressive form of cancer called hepatoma.

``If they do not [operate to remove the lung lesions], the prognosis is not very extended. It would be a year - maybe,'' said Dr. Isaac Djerassi, a research oncologist at Mercy Catholic Medical Center in Philadelphia.

The drugs Mantle is taking to keep his body from rejecting his new liver prevent him from fighting off the cancer, Djerassi said. Surgery could significantly prolong his life, he said.

Dr. Goran Klintmalm, director of the Baylor transplant program, said ``we do not believe there is a place for surgery'' in Mantle's case because there is more than one lung lesion.

``In that situation surgery is not a realistic option. It won't help him in my experience,'' Klintmalm said.

Mantle's doctors won't offer a prognosis for the 63-year-old Hall of Famer, but Klintmalm said the hospital has treated other patients who have developed cancer after a transplant.

``We have some patients that have not survived more than a year and we have some patients eight years out,'' he said.

The lung spots didn't turn up during a full-body scan three days before Mantle's transplant to replace a liver ravaged by hard drinking, hepatitis and cancer.

Doctors suspect the cancer was in the lung at the time of the transplant but was too small to be detected.

Doctors at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Transplant Institute use a blood test they say would have detected the cancer in Mantle's lung before the decision was made to give him a transplant.

Dr. Brian Carr, who developed the test, said it is 200,000 times more sensitive than a CT scan in detecting cancer cells.

The donated liver then could have been given to someone with a better chance of survival, Carr said.

The test detects albumin, which is produced in the liver and is the main protein in blood. If a cell in the blood is detected showing an albumin product, that cell undoubtedly came from the liver, Carr said.

``Normal liver cells only stay in the liver. Therefore if a liver cell is found in the blood, it must be a liver cancer cell,'' he said.