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Burt Rosen
Written By: Julia Brabant, Updated February 2026Living With Two Primary Cancers, Burt Rosen Leans on PRRT & AI to Manage Care
Burt Rosen describes himself as “sick, not shy,” and he’s an open book for just about anyone out there facing similar medical struggles. Yet, because he has two types of primary cancer, that’s a pretty short list – but the more he shares his own story, the more opportunities he has to help others like him.
That’s the realization Burt came to after his July 1, 2022 cancer diagnosis. It’s also the driving force behind his decision to volunteer time, donate samples and share his story with others facing similar circumstances. Now about three-and-a-half years out from his initial diagnosis, Burt continues to live with both pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors and kidney cancer – and when he’s not working his full-time marketing job, he often spends time connecting with others facing complex diagnoses and sharing what he’s learned along the way.
I just wasn’t myself. And, honestly – it was way scarier than being told I had cancer.
Before his diagnoses, Burt admittedly wasn’t in the best of health. He has chronic Lyme disease and a history of ulcers, and he’s also held several high-stress jobs in recent years. Around 2018, he began experiencing “brain fog,” with his condition eventually deteriorating to the point where he struggled to send emails, make phone calls or even compose simple sentences.
“I just wasn’t myself,” he said. “And, honestly – it was way scarier than being told I had cancer.”
He flew home to Portland, Oregon, and saw his naturopath, who helped the brain fog dissipate temporarily. When it returned in late June, Burt went to the hospital, where doctors determined ammonia buildup in his brain caused the symptoms. His liver had also begun to malfunction, leading to a diagnosis of hepatic encephalopathy. Doctors also discovered internal bleeding caused by an unhealed ulcer.
After several unsuccessful attempts to stop the bleeding, a gastroenterologist returned to Burt’s room and whispered, “He knows he has cancer, right?” to Burt’s wife, Krista. Though in and out of consciousness, Burt heard him.
Doctors soon confirmed two primary cancers: Burt had pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, or PNETs, which had metastasized to his liver. He also had renal clear cell carcinoma, or ccRCC, a form of kidney cancer.
Burt began seeing a neuroendocrine specialist who started him on seven rounds of chemotherapy using Capecitabine and Temozolomide. Doctors aimed to shrink his tumors enough to make surgery possible. After seven rounds, Burt’s platelet counts dropped, prompting doctors to stop chemotherapy and move him to monthly Octreotide injections to stabilize his disease ahead of a major surgery planned for that summer.
In March 2023, ahead of the planned surgery, a scan revealed a nodule on Burt’s lung. Doctors referred him a thoracoscopic surgeon, who recommended removal via video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery. Burt had the procedure in April 2023, with tests revealing that the nodule was made of scar tissue, rather than cancer.
In June 2023, Burt underwent a liver resection. Surgeons removed the left lobe of his liver and 17 tumors from the remaining lobe, though additional tumors remained. The original surgical plan also included removing his gallbladder, spleen and the tail of his pancreas via a distal pancreatectomy, but significant blood loss forced doctors to stop before completing the second half of the procedure. However, surgeons did remove Burt’s gallbladder and performed extensive tumor burn-down during that operation.
Because Burt’s tumors are receptor-positive, meaning they respond to certain hormone signals, his doctors started him on Lanreotide, a somatostatin analog injection that slows tumor growth.
He continued getting the shot from June 2023 through March 2025, and his disease remained stable during that time.
By the spring of 2025, tests showed renewed growth in the tumors remaining in Burt’s liver, with one of them doubling in size. Scans also revealed growth in Burt’s pancreatic tumor, while the tumor in his kidney remained stable.
Burt’s surgeon and oncologist recommended surgery and even set a date for it, but Burt wanted a second opinion and sought one at the Mayo Clinic, from a physician specializing in pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. That surgeon didn’t want to move forward with surgery unless he was confident it would remove at least 90% of Burt’s disease and recommended peptide receptor radionuclide therapy, or PRRT, instead.
Often used to treat pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, PRRT is a type of radiation treatment that targets certain cancer cells, specifically, while sparing the surrounding tissue. It tends to have fewer side effects than traditional chemotherapy, and it can also target tumors more directly than traditional radiation. In Burt’s case, the goal is essentially to use PRRT to “buy time” until surgery becomes more feasible.
Burt’s care team will assess the effectiveness of the PRRT treatment after he completes the full 32-week course and then waits another three months for things to settle before having follow-up scans. He’s also still receiving injections every two months, but he plans to stop when he finishes PRRT due to the headaches, nausea and fatigue they’ve been causing. Burt has also made a concerted effort to manage all aspects of his health better since his diagnosis, opting for integrative care, which, in his case, merges traditional medical treatment with wellness and lifestyle practices like yoga, meditation and clean eating.
“The beauty of complementary treatments,” Burt notes, “is that they may help you, and they aren’t going to hurt you.”
Learn as much as you can and be prepared to take control of your own health care. You can’t depend on anyone else, and you can’t outsource your care. If your gut feeling says no to a doctor’s advice, go with it. No one cares about you as much as you care about yourself.
In addition to adopting and maintaining a healthier lifestyle, Burt is back to working in marketing full-time. He’s also spent the last several years learning everything he can about pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors – and how he and others can use AI to help them better understand and manage their own health. A comfortable public speaker, Burt began taking on speaking engagements on the topic, and a recording of one of them caught the attention of NPR, leading to an interview about whether the benefits of AI in health care outweigh potential hazards.
“I didn’t set out to be a talking head on this stuff, but I do use it all the time,” Burt said. “It kind of took on a life of its own.”
While AI use in health care has its limits, Burt notes that it can help interpret complicated scans, test results or medical reports. It can also be useful in helping people figure out what questions to ask their doctors and surgeons, and in his case, it even helped him come up with a solution to an ongoing issue even a brain MRI couldn’t solve.
Burt was experiencing ongoing headaches and nausea upon waking, and his doctor suggested he have a brain MRI, which didn’t show any abnormalities. Burt decided to share his situation and symptoms with MyDoctorFriend, a health care-related AI tool, which in turn asked him a series of questions about how he slept. When Burt shared that he typically slept on one side with one pillow, the tool suggested that laying too flat could cause pressure to build up and recommended he start sleeping with two pillows instead. Burt started doing just that, and his symptoms quickly subsided.
After seeing how much AI tools helped him, Burt began developing ways to share information with others facing neuroendocrine tumors. He helped launch PDX NETswork and Adventures With NETS groups on Facebook, which now have a combined 1,700 members. He also created NET Sherpa, an AI bot he created in ChatGPT, to help those with neuroendocrine tumors find information and resources and better understand their diagnoses and options.
Burt also makes time for adventure and travel, demonstrating that life goes on despite cancer treatment. He went skydiving twice since his diagnosis, and he also took a solo trip from his home in Portland, Oregon, to Glacier National Park and up through Banff in Canada three months after his liver surgery. He also keeps a close eye on emerging developments and advancements in NET and cancer care, noting that some areas are advancing faster than others.
Burt often speaks about the need for more attention given to longitudinal medical research that tracks outcomes over time. He also wants to see a greater emphasis placed on nutrition and holistic care in combination with conventional medicine.
Burt also continues to highlight the role caregivers play in a cancer experience.
“What my wife had to go through…she didn’t sign up for this. Don’t forget that caregivers are human beings, too,” he said. “Caregivers need more love – being a caregiver is the toughest job in the world.”
He offers this advice to others navigating serious health challenges:
“Learn as much as you can and be prepared to take control of your own health care,” Burt said. “You can’t depend on anyone else, and you can’t outsource your care. If your gut feeling says no to a doctor’s advice, go with it. No one cares about you as much as you care about yourself.”
Burt continues to chronicle his treatment and daily life via his blog, AdventuresWithNETS.com.
