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Shellie’s pleural effusion had resolved, the enormous breast mass had disappeared, her bone metastasis were gone, and all other sites of disease were virtually undetectable. With no hair loss, bone marrow damage, or significant side effects beyond mild mouth sores from the Everolimus, she approached a complete remission with a regimen that was crafted especially for her.
“What we have learned however, is that the careful selection of all these active drugs, the substitution of one drug for another, and the intelligent combination of pathway inhibitors can provide unheard of activity with little or no toxicity,” said Nagourney.
A number of laboratories around the world have begun to use human tumor primary cultures, similar to the work done at The Nagourney Cancer Institute in Long Beach—and it’s no wonder.
Nagourney conducted a meta-analysis of outcomes for a very large number of cancers (> 2500) from blood borne to solid tumors which showed that patients who received “good” drugs (those found active or sensitive in the lab) were 2.04 fold more likely to respond.
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In one study in metastatic lung cancer where the response rate is normally 30%, Dr. Nagourney’s patients had a 64.5% (p<0.001) response rate when they pre-selected the treatments for them and only gave them drugs that work for them.
“We have successfully completed over 10,000 patient studies,” says Nagourney, who is author of the book, Outliving Cancer. Having compiled such a large database has proven one key to prescribing the right personalized medicine.
What does it cost?
While it costs $4-6,000 to test a tumor’s DNA and turn it into a genomic profile—that mapping still doesn’t prescribe a therapy.
Dr. Nagourney’s method, which is similar in price, actually determines drug sensitivity or resistance, because drugs that work for one patient may not work for another, even if both patients carry exactly the same diagnosis.
The Institute tries to keep the functional profiling lab services as affordable as possible. The current price for a panel is $4,950, which includes drug analysis and a discussion of findings with literature references and, where applicable, provision of treatment protocol outlines to the treating physician.
Patients who don’t have the capacity to pay—known as “medically indigent”—can have their costs covered if their applications are approved at the Vanguard Cancer Foundation, which was started by John Stamos’ mother Loretta.
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Maria is overjoyed by Shellie’s outcome. “Although I’m not surprised. I told her from that very first phone call that one day soon she would be helping others by sharing her very own cancer success story,” Maria told GNN via email.
“I believe I gave her hope, when hope was very much needed. Thanks to Dr Nagourney we have another life saved, another family saved.”
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I pray this works…
Wish I had known about this before my wife had a mastectomy!