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THE MORNING CALL SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2019 11

Brea
Breast cancer trialsst cancer trials

making an IMPACT at LVHN

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Alliance offering
effective treatments for area patients

By Shannon Sigafoos of The Morning Call

or the past three years – thanks to diagnosed with breast cancer in 1998 and
their alliance with world renowned had a recurrence (now metastatic cancer)
F cancer center, Memorial Sloan 17 years later.
Kettering (MSK) – Lehigh Valley Health “What the test does is identify
Network has been one of only three health something going on in the body that’s
care networks in the country that has been driving the cancer. Mine was AKT (AKT1
able to offer local breast cancer patients E17K), and they were trying to figure out
access to groundbreaking Sloan Kettering how to block that mutation from driving
clinical trials with new medications that are my tumor,” explains Lowe. “I’ve been able
earlier in development. to go to Allentown to get access to the
MSK-IMPACT™ stands for “integrated same treatment I would get if I had gone
mutation profiling of actionable cancer to Manhattan, and we are so lucky to have
targets.” Simply put, the testing can detect Dr. Nair here in the Lehigh Valley.”
mutations and other critical changes in the What made Lowe’s treatment unique
genes of both rare and common cancers. is that she was part of what is known in
“We’re trying to find out what mutations medical circles as a “basket trial” – which
are making the cancer tick, so we can try means that regardless of where someone’s
to treat the mutation. There are roughly cancer is in the body (the physical location
20,000 genes in every cell in our body, and of the tumor), researchers use the same
cancer usually happens because of mutations type of targeted therapy treatments from
in about 450 or so of these genes,” explains patient to patient (for example, the same
Suresh Nair, MD, Physician-in-Chief at therapy could be tested on a breast cancer
LVHN’s Lehigh Valley Cancer Institute. patient that was being tested on a lung
“With MSK IMPACT, doctors can quickly cancer or testicular cancer patient).
find out whether a tumor has changes that Photo courtesy of LVHN “It allowed me to have a drug that has
make the cancer vulnerable.” been used on some of the other cancers
According to MSK, a notable feature but had never been used for breast
of IMPACT is that two DNA samples from “When the MSK study launched, I kept cancer. It was a trial of one – it was the
each patient are sequenced and compared: thinking, ‘We have to get some grants.’ Kathy Lowe trial,” Lowe laughs. “Dr. Nair
DNA from tumor tissue and DNA from I didn’t want to charge patients for the worked for six months writing it, getting
normal tissue, which is usually a blood test, because it was research. I wanted it FDA approved, and then finding a drug
sample. Directly comparing the tumor’s everyone to have equal access,” Dr. Nair company that would take the risk of
genome to the genome in normal blood explains. “I talked to Wendy Body and taking it on.”
ensures that the mutations detected by MSK- some of the other committee members Lowe says that a journey with a
IMPACT are specific to the cancer cells. for the Women’s 5K Classic, about the metastasis is like riding a train, and that
When the trial first opened up locally, the path to starting this research. They really particular train is the treatment you’re
cost of testing was several thousand dollars per supported this. Soon, we got to the point undergoing at the time. Then, she says,
patient. Though it has dropped significantly, where everybody who came into the you get off on the platform and wait for
the cost of treatment is still a burden on top Cancer Institute with breast, ovarian, the next train – one that will hopefully
of the stresses that cancer patients are already cervical or uterine cancer and needed buy you more time.
dealing with. LVHN trial participants have been testing, the Women’s 5K had their back.” “That’s why research money is so
able to have their testing covered by funds About 65 local women have undergone important. That’s why the trials are so
raised through the Women’s 5K Classic, a local testing through the IMPACT trial. One important,” she stresses. “And to have
run/walk that is in its 27th year of securing who was able to benefit very early on is access to that right here in Allentown…
donations for and providing education about Bloomsburg resident Kathy Lowe, a cancer it’s a clinical team of fantastic doctors and
breast and other female cancers. survivor of 21 years who was initially nurses who are keeping it all together.”