Rocking doctors make noise about below-the-belt cancers

There are fewer than 1,000 gynecologic oncologists in the United States, and they generally are busy treating women with cancers of the reproductive tract. So it may be surprising that six of them, scattered from Alaska to North Carolina, managed to form a rock band good enough to get two albums released and to get gigs outside the fundraising circuit.

Less surprising, perhaps, is that these six doctors and dozens of their colleagues will be fanning out across the country Wednesday night to do something close to their hearts: answering questions about the below-the-belt cancers they treat.

The occasion is the World Cancer Day theatrical release of a documentary called No Evidence of Disease. That's also the name of the band, which usually goes by N.E.D. The film, which follows the band members and their patients, will be shown at 43 Regal Cinema locations. At least one gynecological oncologist will be at every screening for a post-show discussion, director Andrea Kalin says.

"The band's music is the sound track for a movement," one that aims to give ovarian, cervical, uterine, vulvar and other gynecological cancers the kind of attention captured by breast cancer in recent decades, says Kalin, a filmmaker at Spark Media in Washington, D.C.

"Women have gotten comfortable talking about what's inside their bras," says Jennifer McGihon, 38, an ovarian cancer survivor featured in the film. Talking about "what's going on with our private parts" is the next step, she says.

N.E.D. wants to advance that conversation, says vocalist and guitar player John Boggess, a professor of gynecologic oncology at the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill.

"We don't write songs that are literally about cancer or death," he says. "But a lot of them are directly related to experiences we've had with patients."

A lyric to one song: "We bargain for a while as the clouds settle on. A week, a month, a year, I can't predict how long."

The name of the band is a reference to the good news – "no evidence of disease" -- that Boggess and his colleagues cannot always give their patients after treatment.

While ovarian and other reproductive tract cancers are not as common as breast, lung and some other cancers, they can be especially lethal. Fewer than half of women with ovarian cancer in the United States survive five years, according to the National Cancer Institute. The American Cancer Society says more than 21,000 U.S. women will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer this year and 14,000 will die from it. Another 14,000 will die from cancer of the cervix or uterus.

New figures from the American Cancer Society show cervical cancer is the third leading cancer killer of women worldwide, after breast and lung cancers. In developed countries, where lung cancer is now the biggest cancer killer of women, ovarian cancer is sixth and cervical cancer is ninth.

In the film, guitar player John Soper, also of University of North Carolina, says: "There's this group of cancers that's been ignored. Hopefully, we can bring some noise to that."

The other members of the band are vocalist and guitar player Joanie Hope of Alaska Women's Cancer Care in Anchorage; drummer Nimesh Nagarsheth of Mount Sinai Hospital, New York City; bass and harmonica player William "Rusty" Robinson of Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans; and guitar player William Winter of Compass Oncology in Vancouver, Wash., and Portland, Ore.

More information on the film and on gynecological cancers is at nedthemovie.com.