Grandmother Continues Life of Adventure on Endometrial Cancer Clinical Trial  

Roberta “Bert” Green is a woman with a full and busy life. When not driving across the country with her husband, Ralph, in their RV, she alternates between paddle boarding, walking, e-biking, and skiing with the changing seasons around her rural Vermont home. Retired after a long career as a school neuropsychologist, she also makes time for volunteering, baking, knitting, and visits with her children and grandkids. 

It’s a life filled with adventure, and Green, 66, contends that none of it would be possible without a decision she made in the fall of 2022. She was facing endometrial cancer for the third time, and the medical center where she was receiving care had run out of treatment options. 

“They told me all they could do is keep me on chemotherapy indefinitely,” explains Green. “I have no problem going through three or six cycles of chemo, but I didn’t want to go on it for the rest of my life. That’s not how I want to live.” 

There was another option. Green’s doctors told her clinical trials for endometrial cancer were available through the Gynecologic Oncology Program at Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center, but joining one would mean ​​2.5-hour drives to and from Boston.  

“I had some trepidation, because I was comfortable being treated where I was and knew the routine, but then I met the team at Dana-Farber,” Green recalls. “We went over the different trials open to me. Their attitude was so positive, and they had such great expertise, that it made it easy to make the transition there. I just put my trust in the process.” 

It was a decision Green would not regret, even though the clinical trial that was deemed the best fit for her — one testing the long-term benefits of chemotherapy drugs letrozole and abemaciclib for endometrial cancer — required weekly visits for the first month, every two weeks for two months, and then monthly after that (coinciding with a New England winter). 

“All-wheel drive is a wonderful thing,” she says with a laugh.  

Time for a change 

The youngest of four sisters, Green has long enjoyed an outdoorsy life. She attended college at Mount Holyoke in idyllic South Hadley, Massachusetts, and settled in nearby Granby. After earning a doctorate in educational psychology and a postgraduate certificate in neuropsychology, she spent decades as a consultant to school districts for students from preschool through high school across Massachusetts and Vermont. She also married, had three daughters, and, after being widowed, remarried and welcomed two stepdaughters into her family.  

In 2018, Green began experiencing vaginal spotting. Knowing that this is among the warning signs for endometrial cancer, she had a biopsy. A week later her gynecologist confirmed her diagnosis – endometrial cancer.      

“I was headed to the ski slope when I got the call with my surgery date,” recalls Green. “My cancer was grade one, stage one, with less than 50% penetration through the wall of the uterus. After surgery, I didn’t need any other treatment besides check-ups each six months.” 

Green thought she had dodged a bullet and quickly returned to work and her active lifestyle. Then, in the spring of 2020, she was walking her dog when she felt what she thought was a pulled abdominal muscle or hernia. It turned out to be a cancer recurrence, this time requiring surgery as well as chemotherapy at a New Hampshire medical facility through early 2021. She concurrently joined a clinical trial at the same center.   

When the cancer came back a second time, in spring 2022, it had progressed into Green’s lymphatic system and was no longer operable. Her New Hampshire doctors recommended progesterone hormonal therapy, but Green wanted a second opinion. 

 She traveled to Boston to meet with Ursula Matulonis, MD, chief of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at Dana-Farber. Matulonis agreed Green should try the progesterone treatment in New Hampshire, then reach back out if it was unsuccessful.  

“The progesterone didn’t work, and my oncologist told me, ‘If you were my sister or mother, I’d have you go to Dana-Farber,’” recalls Green. “That helped me make the decision, although I was still nervous.”  

Trial and travel    

Once she was at Dana-Farber, Green says, the anxiety over changing her cancer care providers and site quickly slipped away. Matulonis and the rest of Green’s new oncology team – which includes nurse practitioner Catherine Earley, NP, and clinical research nurse Stephanie Morrissey, RN, BSN – went over the clinical trial options available to her. Green chose a trial that tested medications that already had shown success against estrogen receptor positive breast cancer, and were being tested in endometrial cancer patients for the first time. 

Green readied for the many potential side effects associated with the treatment. These side effects never came, other than some fatigue and joint pain, and Green’s appointments for blood work and checkups went from weekly to monthly in early 2023. They have remained there ever since, with quarterly CT scans confirming that her cancer is in remission. Green remains on the trial, which includes an oral drug called a CDK4/6 inhibitor, an aromatase inhibitor, and metformin, all of which she takes daily at home – now a farmhouse abutting a mountain in East Dover, Vermont.  

“This trial has shown very impressive anti-cancer results with combined CDK4/6 and aromatase inhibitors in estrogen receptor positive recurrent endometrial cancer,” says Matulonis. “It has been so gratifying to see how well Bert has done and how she lives her life to the fullest while on the clinical trial.”   

Like Matulonis, Morrissey is impressed by Green’s upbeat attitude and love for life. 

“Bert truly appreciates our mission and the work behind the science,” says Morrissey. “She’s a beautiful woman, inside and out, who says she feels blessed to be part of our clinical trial. At a recent appointment, she became very emotional while telling us that we have made the life she now has possible.” 

That life includes regular trips to national parks with Ralph and an assortment of dogs and cats in the family RV, which they have dubbed “Animal House.” The latest adventure is a planned cross-country drive in January 2025 from Vermont to the Grand Canyon, with a stop to ski and see friends in Park City, Utah. There are also visits with their five daughters and five grandchildren to look forward to, along with hiking, other outdoor activities, and her volunteer work.   

“My goal when I got cancer was to be able to stay active and do all the things that make me feel good,” says Green. “Dana-Farber has absolutely made that happen for me.” 

About the Medical Reviewer

Ursula A. Matulonis, MD is Chief of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is the first recipient of the Brock-Wilson Family Chair at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She co-leads the Gynecologic Cancer Program within the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and the Ovarian Cancer Specialized Program in Research Excellence (SPORE) grant from the National Cancer Institute. Her research focuses on developing new targeted therapies for gynecologic malignancies, with a specific interest in ovarian cancer and endometrial cancer.

Dr. Matulonis has led several PARP inhibitor, anti-angiogenic agent, immunotherapy, and combination trials for ovarian cancer in the United States and internationally. Dr. Matulonis serves on the Massachusetts Ovarian Cancer Task Force, chairs the Gyn subcommittee of the Alliance cooperative group, and the Scientific Advisory Board for the Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance, the Rivkin Foundation, the Clearity Foundation, and Overcome. She has received the Dana-Farber Dennis Thompson Compassionate Care Scholar award, the Lee M. Nadler "Extra Mile" Award, the Clearity Foundation award, the Zakim Award at Dana-Farber for patient advocacy, and recently in 2020, the Albany Medical College Alumni Association Distinguished Alumna Award. She has been named one of Boston's Best Physicians in Medical Oncology by Boston Magazine numerous times. Dr. Matulonis is also a recipient of grant funding from the Breast Cancer Research Foundation examining differences between ovarian cancer, endometrial cancer and breast cancer.

After receiving her MD from Albany Medical College, she completed an internship and residency at the University of Pittsburgh, followed by a medical oncology fellowship at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, MA.