Trish Keating, who successfully underwent an experimental colon cancer treatment with a drug commonly used to treat high blood pressure, stands for a photograph in Vancouver, B.C., on Tuesday March 10, 2015. The B.C. Cancer Agency is hailing an experimental treatment that brought a woman with terminal cancer into remission in just five weeks.
Image Credit: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
March 10, 2015 - 1:00 PM
VANCOUVER - The B.C. Cancer Agency is hailing an experimental treatment that brought a woman with terminal cancer into remission in just five weeks.
But one of the researchers involved in the study cautions it could be years before the treatment is widely used and it's still not clear if it will work for all types of cancer.
Doctors at the cancer agency have been conducting a trial since 2012 that uses personalized onco-genomics — or POG for short — to test tumours to determine what drugs would might best treat them.
Trish Keating had terminal colorectal cancer and faced prolonged chemotherapy when she decided to enrol in the POG program last year.
The testing suggested treating Keating's tumour with a drug commonly used for high blood pressure, and in just five weeks her cancer was in remission.
Doctor Howard Lim says the use of genomics testing is still experimental and it could be years before researchers are able to assess its potential impact on cancer treatment.
News from © iNFOnews, 2015