Oregon Health & Science University has promised to change an aspect of its cancer treatment and pay out $1 million to settle a lawsuit claiming the university’s negligence killed a cancer patient.

The patient’s widow, who sued the university in 2019 after her husband died of a toxic reaction to a chemotherapy drug, was overjoyed.

“We’re going to be saving more lives,” Joanne McIntyre said of the settlement. “I’m happy. OHSU is happy.”

OHSU denied fault in the case, saying in an email it “has followed, and continues to follow, national cancer and evidence-based medicine set forth by national expert consensus in the field.”

Still, McIntyre said the changes the university is making could have saved her husband’s life.

David McIntyre was diagnosed with bile duct cancer in September 2018 and sought treatment from OHSU. But because of a genetic condition that affects as many as 8% of people, his body couldn’t process one of the chemotherapy drugs he received from the hospital. He became extremely ill, with vomiting, a rash and diarrhea, according to the lawsuit, which Joanne McIntyre’s attorney, James Huegli, filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court.

By the time doctors gave him the antidote, it was too late for it to be effective. The 78-year-old Portland man died Dec. 12, 2018.

But, as Joanne McIntyre learned, he didn’t have to die. Not only is there a test for the genetic condition, it’s possible to reverse a reaction to the drug, capecitabine, if the patient gets the antidote fast enough after showing symptoms. The university never told him about the genetic condition or that it can be tested for, nor did it give him the antidote in time, according to the lawsuit.

Outraged and grieving, Joanne McIntyre has spent the years since her husband died advocating for increased education and mandatory testing for the genetic condition before giving the chemotherapy medication to patients. Not only did she file the wrongful death suit against OHSU, she has also helped form a nonprofit that advocates for increased education and testing for the condition.

“I could not just allow his death to be in vain,” said McIntyre, 81. “I just gritted my teeth and decided this was my goal for the rest of my life.”

As part of the settlement, the university’s oncologists will now be required to tell patients about the genetic condition before initiating the chemotherapy drug, spokesperson Tamara Hargens-Bradley said in an email.

Although OHSU said testing for the genetic condition isn’t standard practice, the university is nonetheless going to include education on the condition in its Oncology Fellowship program. It is also going to create a guide that describes the condition and how to identify symptoms of a toxic reaction to the chemotherapy drug.

“This resource guide will be available to everyone in the oncology department,” spokesperson Hargens-Bradley said in an email.

McIntyre and her two adult children will divide what is left of the $1 million after attorney’s fees and other costs. She will donate $5,000 to her advocacy group, Advocates for Universal DPD/DPYD Testing. The organization’s name refers to the specific deficiency that can make capecitabine and other drugs in the same family fatal.

McIntyre’s suit originally asked for $6.4 million.

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— Fedor Zarkhin

503-294-7674; fzarkhin@oregonian.com