Gerardo Rodriguez Salazar was 46 years old when doctors told him his stage 4 colorectal cancer was terminal and gave him six months to live. Years of chemotherapy and radiation at another facility had failed to stop it. Five years later, he is sharing his survival story, and he says the turning point came the day he decided to seek a second opinion.
Rodriguez Salazar credits Dr. Gladys Rodriguez, a gastrointestinal oncologist who directs the Hispanic Gastrointestinal Clinic at Northwestern Medicine, with saving his life, according to NBC 5 Chicago. He met her for a second opinion at the GI cancer clinic after his original treatment plan had run its course. “She changed my life,” he said, adding that his life is 100 times better because of her care, per the same report.
Her team removed his colostomy bag and treated his cancer with immunotherapy — a treatment Rodriguez Salazar said worked for him even though few people with his type of cancer respond well to it. That detail lines up with national data: the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved checkpoint inhibitors, including pembrolizumab in 2020 and a combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab in April 2025, for first-line treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer marked by microsatellite instability-high or mismatch repair deficiency status, according to the National Cancer Institute. Only about 4 to 5 percent of metastatic colorectal cancer patients carry those biomarkers, meaning the treatment that worked for Rodriguez Salazar is effective for a narrow subset of advanced cases.
A Clinic Built Around Language and Trust
The Hispanic Gastrointestinal Clinic is marking its first anniversary this month. Dr. Rodriguez and her team are bilingual, and the station's report notes that bilingual care has helped Rodriguez Salazar resolve questions, follow up on treatment, and receive the care he needs. Dr. Rodriguez said language is one of the biggest barriers to care for Spanish-speaking Chicagoans, explaining that it can make it difficult for patients to communicate with doctors, understand diagnoses and treatment plans, and can lead to delays in treatment.
The clinic includes bilingual providers from the front desk through gastrointestinal oncology, and a patient navigator helps patients manage medications and checks in on them, per the same account. The clinic aims to ease language and care-access burdens through second opinions, screening for clinical trials, and continuity of care.
Research backs up that approach. A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that limited-English-proficiency Latino patients who switched from English-only to Spanish-speaking primary care physicians saw statistically significant improvements in risk factor control and overall health outcomes. That matters nationally because only 6.3 percent of practicing physicians in the U.S. are Latino, according to the UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Institute, a shortage that leaves many limited-English-proficient patients facing longer delays before reaching specialized care.
Disparities Behind the Diagnosis
Rodriguez Salazar's case reflects patterns researchers have flagged in Hispanic cancer care nationwide. An American Cancer Society report released this month found that cancer is the leading cause of death among Hispanic and Latino people in the United States, with an estimated 229,900 new diagnoses and 54,200 deaths projected for 2026, according to the American Cancer Society. The same report found Hispanic people have double the rates of liver and stomach cancers compared with white patients.
Colorectal cancer screening rates among Hispanic adults also remain significantly lower than among non-Hispanic white adults — 56 percent compared with 67 percent — per the American Cancer Society. The organization reported that 25 percent of Hispanic people aged 18 to 64 are uninsured, three times the white uninsured rate, and said access to cancer prevention and early detection services is essential to reducing and eliminating those disparities.
Rodriguez Salazar's diagnosis at 46 also fits a broader, troubling trend: three out of four colorectal cancer diagnoses in adults under 50 are caught at an advanced stage, while incidence is rising 3 percent annually among adults ages 20 to 49 and 0.4 percent among those ages 50 to 64, according to the American Cancer Society's 2026 colorectal cancer report. Federal task forces lowered the recommended initial screening age from 50 to 45 in 2021 in response to rising young-onset cases.
Why Second Opinions Matter
Rodriguez Salazar's experience also underscores the clinical value of seeking another set of eyes on a tough diagnosis. A Mayo Clinic study published in the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice found that 88 percent of patients seeking a second opinion left with a new or refined diagnosis, while only 12 percent had their original diagnosis fully confirmed, according to Mayo Clinic. That study evaluated 286 patients referred to Mayo Clinic's internal medicine specialists for diagnostic uncertainty or complex conditions.
A separate 2025 retrospective study on oncology second opinions found that consultations with subspecialists resulted in treatment plan modifications or de-escalations in 36 percent of cases, yielding an average cost savings of more than $15,000 per patient, according to the Journal of Oncology Practice. The findings suggest second opinions can offer both financial and quality-of-life benefits by reducing redundant or ineffective treatments.
Northwestern University's Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center was established in 1974 and dedicated in 1991 in honor of Chicago real estate executive Robert H. Lurie, who died at age 46 in 1990. The center achieved NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center status in 1997 and now treats more than 10,000 new patients each year.
Cancer remains one of Chicago's top two underlying causes of death even as the city's overall life expectancy reached an all-time high of 79.5 years in 2024, according to data published by the Chicago Department of Public Health.
Rodriguez Salazar urged others facing a frightening diagnosis to seek second opinions, talk openly with their doctors, and speak up about concerning changes in their bodies rather than staying silent. Five years after being told he had months left, he's using his story to push other patients toward the kind of persistence that changed his own outcome.
