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WHEN ROY SCHEIDER DIED LAST month, the dateline on the Associated Press story was Little Rock.
Best known as the shark-hunting police chief in Stephen Spiel-berg's classic "Jaws," the 75-year-old actor had become a regular visitor to Little Rock for one reason: He suffered from multiple myeloma, a cancer of the white blood cells that is incurable.
Scheider, like patients from more than 40 countries, sought treatment from possibly the world's best facility specializing in the treatment of multiple myeloma, the Myeloma Institute for Research & Therapy at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
"Medical tourism" is a term most often used when Americans travel abroad in search of less expensive treatment. But superior or experimental treatments can also drive medical tourism.
Dr. Bart Barlogie and his staff at the Myeloma Institute have worked to establish the methods that help define the treatment of multiple myeloma. So far, three methods have been developed, known as Total Therapy I, II and III. This summer, the Myeloma Institute hopes to introduce Total Therapy IV and V, therapies that allow for more specific treatment of two subgroups the institute's researchers have identified within the cancer: "high risk" and "low risk."
The treatments keep the patients coming back. As they stay for treatment, they contribute millions of dollars to the local economy.
'The Job Isn't Done'
The late UAMS Chancellor Dr. Harry Ward, Dr. James Suen and Dr. Kent Westbrook helped recruit Barlogie to UAMS in 1989. Suen and Westbrook are former directors of UAMS' cancer center.
Under Barlogie's direction, the institute has conducted more stem-cell transplants for myeloma sufferers than any other facility in the world. The treatment removes a patient's white blood and stem cells then replaces them with new stem cells. Patients also receive chemotherapy as part of the treatment.
The Myeloma Institute which is part of the recently named Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, treats about 2,250 patients a year, more than any other such facility in the nation. It also performed its 7,000th stem-cell transplant last October.
"It's now almost 20 years, so I've gotten used doing what I'm doing," Barlogie, 63, said. "When one maintains quality and has credibility, I guess one sustains that - like building Mercedes, Porsche or...