Personalized Cancer Treatment
Much is being written and talked about today regarding “personalized” cancer treatment. What a novel idea. What if we treat each cancer patient’s tumor or blood cell cancer as the unique problem that it is? For several years, medical technology has provided the capability to test specific cancer cells in the laboratory for their vulnerability and response to particular drug combinations. Surprisingly, it has only been practiced by a few oncologists.
Almost all cancer is being treated by chemotherapy regimens for the “average” or “typical” patient. Researchers study a particular type of cancer and design a concoction of cytotoxic drugs that they determine best meets the criteria for killing the particular category of cells. Levels of aggressiveness and progression are taken into consideration, but therapies are standardized within a spreadsheet layout of the options. Standard references are used by oncologists to prescribe the treatment. This allows for the convenient production of the drugs, a convenient system of categorizing and cataloging the drugs, and a convenient method for doctors to prescribe the drugs. The conventional cancer treatment community–scientists, oncologists, pharmaceutical companies, and funding agencies–have all maintained a comfort level with this treatment protocol.
The problem is that each cancer patient’s cancer cells have unique characteristics. They have different levels of resistance and varying vulnerabilities. Some cancer cells may be virtually immune to their prescribed standard chemotherapy, but possibly defenseless to just a small tweak in the formula. Many integrative oncologists make it a common practice to extract cancer cells from the tumor or blood and conduct resistance and efficacy tests using various combinations and strength levels of drugs. Once they have determined the most effective combination, they prescribe the chemotherapy accordingly. This seems like such a no-brainer. However, it is still a rare practice among oncologists. The main argument for not bothering with the procedure is that it is an extra burden, expensive, and not necessary. The burden and expense would likely be offset by the avoidance of treatments with ineffective drugs. Nevertheless, most oncologists profess the virtues of the standard process. Well, one only has to look at the abysmal record of progress in cancer treatment for the last 40 years to see that some kind of meaningful change might be worth considering. We desperately need a new strategy for the war on cancer.