Deaths from Hodgkin's disease have become relatively rare in recent years, with steady advances in treatment, but the passing of Minnesota Timberwolves executive Flip Saunders shows that the cancer, its complications and even its treatment can swiftly exert a heavy toll.
Team owner Glen Taylor said Monday that Saunders' health changed drastically over a "three to four day period" in early September.
Saunders died Sunday from complications associated with Hodgkin's lymphoma, and details from Taylor were the first on Saunders' rapid decline.
"He got a fever and from that fever … within a day, all of a sudden he was in the hospital. Once he was in the hospital, his situation changed very rapidly," Taylor said.
"I knew how tenuous his situation was, so many things going wrong, but still you always had that hopefulness inside you that he'd turn the corner the other way, and pretty soon we'd be talking basketball with each other again."
Saunders, whose Hodgkin's was diagnosed this summer, joined a list of other celebrity cases that have given the disease a high profile. Hockey star Mario Lemieux's Hodgkin's was diagnosed in 1993; he has since led a foundation that has spent millions on research and treatment. Actor Richard Harris, who played Albus Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter movies, suffered from Hodgkin's and died in 2004.
Hodgkin's is a form of cancer known as a lymphoma that attacks white blood cells and the protective lymphatic system.
The American Cancer Society estimates that 9,000 new cases appear each year, along with 1,000 related deaths.