Precision Therapeutics

• By momanderson920
• Posted June 26, 2009 at 7:29 am
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Can you get a second opinion?

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• By tg4love
• Posted June 26, 2009 at 8:23 am
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Second opinion? On the chemos that were tested or from another doctor? The chemo I was on was on the intermediate response list. It did not respond to my cancer in the petri dish but was better than the other 4 which had zero response. Please check out the web site for Precision Therapeutics. It really is a great way to help cancer (especially ovarian) patients without the suffering to our bodies. Thank you for your reply.

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• By gpawelski
• Posted June 26, 2009 at 9:20 am
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tg4love

The testing (assays) Precision Therapeutics is using is called a "cell-death" assay. The "cell-death" assays are not "growing" anything. At one time, the goal of cancer treatment was to inhibit unregulated cell "growth." In the last twenty years, the goal is to induce cell "death" in order to successfully conquer cancer. The much older "cell-growth" assays measure a drug's ability to inhibit cell "growth" and only succeeds in eliminating drugs that would "not work" for a patient. The more modern "cell-death" assays measure the ability of chemotherapy drugs to induce cell "death" (apoptosis) in a tumor biopsy from a patient. Assays based on "cell-death" occur in the entire population of tumor cells. Again, Precision's ChemoFX is not "growing" anything, it is measuring "cell death" (apoptosis).

PubMed lists a paper that reports an increase from 35% to 65% response rate for recurrent ovarian cancer patients when cell culture assay tests were used to select the chemotherapy drugs. The P values (P=.005, etc.) given are measures of the statistical significance of the findings. The smaller the number, the higher the statistical significance. "P" refers to the probability that the finding is due to random chance. So, high P values are bad. P values of 5% or less are deemed to be statistically significant. All of the P values reported in this study indicate that the results are, indeeed, statistically significant. (Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2003 Nov;189(5):1301-7)

According to a study by Dr. Holly Gallion (of Precision Therapeutics), published in the International Journal of Gynecological Cancer (IJGC) researchers using the Chemo FX Assay, identified which chemo agent would be most lethal to an individual patient's cancer. In the study of 256 women with recurrent ovarian cancer, the time women went before a worsening of their disease was two to three times longer if they were treated with an assay-sensitive drug compared to an assay-resistant drug. The bottom line is the assay is able to predict the patient's response to treatment. The Chemo FX is a (cell-death) assay test. Their study adds to the already large body of evidence of the accuracy of cell culture assays in ovarian cancer.

The assay determines which agents are most potent against a specific tumor and what concentration works best. No more hit or miss in the patient. Armed with that information, the treating physician and patient can proceed with a chemo regimen likely to work right out of the gate and subjecting the patient to less toxicity. If the assay finds that the tumor responds to none of the currently avialable treatments, a patient could then be referred to a clinical trial before a history of less useful treatments rules her out as a clinical trial candidate.

In light of the precious little in the way of guidance from clinical trials with respect to best empiric treatment, oncologists give treatments knowing full well that only a certain percentage of patients will receive a benefit from any given medicine. They may subject patients to one combination chemotherapy after another, just going from one journal paper to another journal paper. They need information about the characteristics that predict which patients are more likely to respond well. The empirical approach, which is based on medical journal articles, epidemiology and economics, doesn't tell doctors how to personalize their care to individual patients. Physicians' decisions need to be based on personal experience, clinical insights, and medical training.

Cell culture assay measures the net effect of all processes within the cancer, acting with and against each other in real time, and it tests living cells actually exposed to drugs and drug combinations of interest. Tens of thousands of individual patient specimens are currently being submitted for testing by more than 1,000 clinical oncologists, surgeons and pathologists annually in the U.S. It is certainly each practitioner's prerogative to order these tests. It seems probable that a self-educated oncologist, genuinely on the cutting-edge would tend to be aggressive in actual treatment beyond mere rhetoric, and make use of running tests on a "fresh" tumor specimen before selecting a chemotherapy option.

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• By Pattikay52
• Posted June 26, 2009 at 11:54 am
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I have had a tissue assay done at Rational Therapeutics. There they take live cells from the tumor and subject it to all the different chemos. Then they determine the right combination of drugs that work. My results have been amazing. Before I had my surgery, my CA125 was over 2000 and after three treatments my CA125 went down to 59. I had another assay test done after my surgery and I am now on another combination of chemo drugs. My CA125 now is at 11.
What I have heard about testing in a petri dish is that the cells are not the same as when taken from a live source such as a tumor. Rational Therapeutics only uses the live tissue for their studies. Many patients who have had this test done there are doing remarkably well. You should check them out if you are going to go for a tissue assay. They have a website. Its: www.rationaltherapeutics.com

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• By gpawelski
• Posted June 26, 2009 at 5:51 pm
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Pattikay52

Cell-death assays test fresh "live" cells in their three dimensional, floating clusters (in their natural state), not passaged cells (cell-lines). Established cell line is not reflective of the behavior of "fresh" tumor cells in primary culture in the lab, much less in the patient. Solid tumor specimens are cultured in concical polypropylene microwells for 96 hours to increase the proportion of tumor cells, relative to normal cells. Polypropylene is a slippery material which prevents the attachment of fibroblasts and epithelial cells and encourages the tumor cells to remain in the form of three dimensional, floating clusters. Real life 3D analysis makes these "Oncologic In Vitro Chemoresponse Assays" indicative of what will happen in the body.

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• By tg4love
• Posted June 26, 2009 at 6:57 pm
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Okay, I don't know where you are getting your information gpawelski, however, I have looked back through my paperwork and my cancer was indeed grown. In fact, I call Precision Therapeutics today to be sure. I told them about this web site because you have confused me. I want them to see what you wrote because I only want people to have facts that are true. You seem to know a lot of medical info. Did you have your cancer tested by this company as well? And, I am glad to hear, pattikay52, that there is another company that does the same thing. You seem to have had a good response. Yeah! Good luck to you.
If there is a company that can save us from going from chemo to chemo and help us, well, there is hope for us not to suffer the side effects, don't you think?

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• By gpawelski
• Posted June 26, 2009 at 9:05 pm
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tg4love

Basically, ChemoFX, HDRA, EVA, MiCK and TCR are "brand names" of the most widely studied of the "cell-death" endpoint assays (DISC, MTT, ATP, Fluoroscein Diacetate and Resazurin assays). What is important is that they are all "cell-death" assays (for sensitivity and resistance).

Like Rational Therapeutics, Precision Therapeutics tests cells from excised tumors against a panel of chemotherapy agents, singly and in combination, through the company's ChemoFX assay and analysis algorithm.

Cell-death assay-testing is based on a biological principle that when a drug is effective, it will induce apoptosis (cell death) in the cancer cell. If the cancer cell is resistant to a drug, apoptosis will not occur. Assay-testing for apoptosis will determine whether a drug kills the tumor.

Assay-testing can take the guesswork out of cancer treatment. Cell-death assay tests provide much more powerful prognostic information. They tell you that a given from of treatment has an above average probability of being associated with a clinical response and/or with being associated with above average survival. Likewise, they indicate that a given treatment is associated with a below average probability of response and/or survival.

All available assays are able to report drug "resistance" information. Resistance implies that when a patient's cancer cells are exposed to a particular chemotherapy agent in the laboratory, the cancer cells will continue to live and grow. Some assays also are able to report drug "sensitivity" information. Sensitivity implies that when a patient's cancer cells are treated with a particular chemotherapy agent in the laboratory, that agent will kill the cancer cells or inhibit their proliferation.

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