2023-11-17 01:49:08
HALIFAX — Robin McGee has been living with stage four colorectal cancer for 13 years – a remarkable feat considering the severity of his condition.
On Wednesday, the 62-year-old Nova Scotian traveled to Halifax, where she and 30 other cancer patients and survivors from nine provinces spoke to researchers regarding their experiences with so-called “medicine of precision”. This is a rather innovative approach that adapts the treatment to each patient, taking into account the genetics of the tumor and the characteristics of the person.
For Ms. McGee, this approach changed her life. “My cancer was like a freight train, and this precision medicine slammed on the brakes,” she said in an interview following participating in a series of discussions organized by the Marathon Cancer Centers Network. Hope Terry-Fox. “It avoided very severe pain and limitations.”
Ms. McGee said she was running out of treatment options covered by health insurance. She arranged, at her own expense, for her tumor to be subjected to genomic analysis which would allow her to know its specific mutations. The results suggested a surprising treatment: a drug typically used to treat other types of cancer.
After purchasing the drug in Bangladesh, she began treatment in July, with the approval of her oncologist.
“My blood cancer markers dropped, which showed that I was responding” to the drug, she said. “If we might make cancer treatment (…) sensitive to individual biomarkers of mutations, as in my case, we would save many more lives.”
When the Cancer Center Network was created in 2019, it brought together Canada’s leading cancer hospitals and academic research centers for the first time. This group has been described as “Cancer Research Team Canada.”
Through extensive studies focused on the search for harmful genetic mutations, the network has worked hard to sort out the good mutations from the bad, compiling genetic profile data from patients across Canada.
This type of data sharing was once hampered by the reluctance of provinces to share personal health information across their borders. The network now offers a secure data sharing platform.
“We are building the most comprehensive cancer resource in Canada,” said Robin Urquhart, scientific director at the Atlantic Partnership for Tomorrow’s Health, which is part of the Cancer Centers Network.
“This includes clinical data and genomic data from patients across the country, which allows us to do many things, such as identify different markers in the blood that can detect cancer earlier,” explains the associate professor at department of community health and epidemiology at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia.
Precision medicine “matches each cancer patient with the best possible treatment.”
Professor Urquhart notes that the meetings in Halifax mark the first time that researchers from the network have come together with cancer patients, survivors and caregivers to talk regarding the future of this precision medicine.
“This group came together (…) to guide our work,” Ms. Urquhart said. We want to make sure our work is what patients want.”
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