Ky. attorney defies brain cancer odds through Markey clinical trial

LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 15, 2025) — As a University of Kentucky alum, David Higdon has strong connections to UK: he and his wife met as undergraduates in the early 1990s. The 51-year-old Georgetown attorney has remained a dedicated Wildcat football and basketball fan over the years. In 2013, UK became a part of his life story again when he turned to the UK Markey Cancer Center for treatment after a brain cancer diagnosis.

Higdon’s cancer journey began a year earlier, when he started to experience unusual symptoms.

“After normal activities, I’d be completely exhausted,” he said. “Then I started having these strange episodes where I’d see flashing lights and I’d start to zone out.”

Higdon was initially treated for anxiety. But the unusual episodes, which he later found out were seizures, continued for months. It wasn’t until he experienced a grand mal seizure at his home — a medical emergency causing unconsciousness and requiring immediate hospitalization — that he finally received a diagnosis.

After a hospital scan revealed a brain tumor, Higdon was transferred to the UK Markey Cancer Center where he met his oncologist, John Villano, M.D., Ph.D. He was diagnosed with an oligodendroglioma — a rare type of glioma, which is a brain cancer that develops from the brain’s supportive cells. Oligodendrogliomas are typically seen in adults over 40 and are more common among men.

The tumor in the left lobe of Higdon’s brain was the size of a tennis ball. At grade 2, it wasn’t as aggressive as higher-grade brain cancers, but his long-term prognosis was serious.

“At that time, it was unusual for patients with his diagnosis to survive beyond 10 years,” said Villano. “Even after treatment, it has a high likelihood of recurrence, with most cases returning within a few years.”

Higdon’s case was also complicated by the tumor’s location near the “Broca’s area” — the part of the brain responsible for speech. Complete surgical removal would be impossible without risking permanent speech impairment.

Higdon’s treatment plan — surgery followed by radiation therapy — would begin less than a week after his arrival at Markey.

Neurosurgeon Thomas Pittman, M.D., successfully removed about 80% of the tumor while still preserving Higdon’s speech function. The surgery provided immediate relief of Higdon’s symptoms, and he was back at work within three weeks.

“What he took out cleared my mind,” Higdon said. “My mind had just been cloudy for months, so when they took it out, I felt like I was able to think and connect better right away. I felt like myself again.”

Following surgery, Higdon was offered the opportunity to participate in a clinical trial that would add a chemotherapy drug called temozolomide to his treatment regimen. The phase III trial, funded by the National Institutes of Health, sought to determine if the combination therapy would be more effective than radiation alone.

He says the decision to participate was easy.

“I knew that whatever I was getting was going to be at least as effective as the standard of care,” he said. “So there was nothing to lose.”

Going beyond the standard of care

Today, more than 10 years after Higdon’s diagnosis, the cancer has not returned.

The results of Higdon’s trial would later show that combining radiation therapy with temozolomide improved patient survival rates by about 50%, which changed the standard of care for grade 2 gliomas.

Through the clinical trial, Higdon was able to get early access to the future standard of care treatment. His participation also paved the way for advances in the past decade, including the development of IDH inhibitors, a breakthrough precision medicine that was approved by the FDA in 2024 for the treatment of grade 2 gliomas.

“What’s remarkable is how much progress we've made in just a decade,” said Villano. “Survival rates for patients with David's diagnosis are better today than they were when he was first treated.”

As an National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, Markey offers patients access cutting edge clinical trials that aren’t available elsewhere in the state. These trials give patients like David access to the latest cancer treatments before they are widely available. And as David can attest, the results can be lifesaving.

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Today, Higdon returns to Markey for routine scans to ensure there are no signs of cancer recurrence, a small but necessary part of his post-treatment life.

Since returning to his legal profession just three weeks after brain surgery, Higdon hasn’t slowed down. When he’s not in the courtroom, he enjoys golfing, attending Wildcat football and basketball games and spending time with his wife and their two children, now 21 and 17.

The perspective gained from his diagnosis has also shaped his priorities. Over the past decade, he’s checked several items off the “bucket list” he made after learning about his condition, including trips to Yellowstone National Park, Alaska, Hawaii and London.

“These are places I might not have seen if I hadn’t received this diagnosis and started making a list of things I wanted to experience,” Higdon said. “But I’m not expecting to die anytime soon. The treatment I received through Markey has given me a future I wasn’t sure I’d have.”