CHEYENNE -- Half of all men and a third of all women will hear a doctor say: “You have cancer.”

This statement used to be a death sentence. But new medications and procedures offer hope to patients fighting the disease.

Wyoming’s lawmakers now have joined the battle. Last week they approved legislation to extend health insurance coverage to clinical trials.

Local resident Greta Morrow said her participation in such trials saved her life.

Cancer patients who do not respond to standard therapies often turn to clinical trials as a final option. But while Wyoming insurance companies previously covered the cost of routine cancer care, benefits did not include research studies.

This meant that patients paid the bill for blood tests, doctor visits and chemotherapy treatments associated with testing unproven medications. Pharmaceutical companies provide free medicines and pay for any additional tests.

Morrow said it can take six to eight years’ worth of clinical trials before a drug is approved for general use. But research studies offer patients a potentially life-saving treatment.

“It’s an access-to-care issue,” she said. “The knowledge about how to treat cancer is growing at a rapid rate.”

Morrow added that she didn’t hesitate when her doctor suggested a clinical trial.

She wasn’t responding to traditional treatments. After three clinical drug trials, Morrow’s cancer still wasn’t in remission.

But the new medications bought her extra time. She said the experimental drugs kept her cancer from growing and allowed researchers to finalize a new type of bone marrow transplant.

Since she was too sick to withstand a traditional transplant, Morrow agreed to join a fourth clinical trial.

This time it worked. The mini-bone marrow transplant that saved her life is now a standard treatment.

But Morrow was surprised to learn that her health-care benefits did not include clinical trials. She was told that she could take part in clinical trials, but she would have to pay the bill.

State Rep. Lori Millin, D-Cheyenne, said she also was surprised to learn about the coverage gap.

People who pay for health-care insurance assume they have the means to get well without going broke, she added.

The issue came before the Joint Interim Labor, Health and Social Services Committee, and legislators agreed to sponsor a bill to extend health care coverage.

Millin said members heard from a woman in her district going through her second bout of cancer. She testified while wearing a baseball cap because she lost her hair to cancer treatments.

Patient testimony put a face onto the problem, Millin said. And the successful stories of people like Morrow show that clinical trials do offer hope.

With the approval of the Legislature, Wyoming now joins 23 other states with similar laws.

Medicare began to include clinical trials in 2000.

Under Wyoming’s bill, coverage is limited to Phase II, III or IV clinical trials. It does not include Phase I trials, which establish toxicity levels and have the greatest risk for adverse reactions.

All clinical trials also must be approved by an agency such as the Food and Drug Administration, Veterans Affairs or the National Institutes of Health.

The legislation only applies to cancer clinical trials.

Nancy Higgins said cancer is a strange disease. Each person will experience different symptoms and react to different treatments.

Two years ago she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and while she has not joined a clinical trial, the participation of someone else helped advance today’s treatments, she said.

“The path was made for me already,” she said. “What if it wasn’t?”

Janet Anderson said she discovered a malignant tumor in her uterus two years ago.

But after beating cancer once, the non-smoker was diagnosed with small-cell lung cancer last year. Low-dose radiation put the disease into remission, but there is always the chance it could come back.

She added that while this type of cancer is incurable, that could change with additional research.

Anderson said she continues to complete quarterly scans and blood tests. Her annual bills are $4,000 instead of the $12,000 she would be forced to pay if this care was part of a clinical trial.

“When you are fighting cancer, the last thing you want to fight with is your insurance company,” she said. “I’m here today because of people who went through clinical trials in the past.

“I survived, and I owe that to people who paid out of pocket.”