[Andrea Barnett Budin]

Once again, thank you GD...!

THRILLING CANCER SURVIVOR STORY...

It's about time the our doctors focus on the patient before them! There are secrets locked in the tissue samples of cancer patient. Each is different, even with the same diagnosis. General standard of care options may not be well received by all patients.

There are labs that focus on cancer cell death vs cancer cell growth -- with remarkable revelations! THE perfect match for the patient can save their life! WHY DID I NOT LEARN ABOUT THIS UNTIL THE LAST 6 MNTHS?! GW led me to the book OUTLIVING CANCER, and my eyes were opened.

Every cancer patient is unique. Cancer treatments must be personalized, on the cellular level. AND ALL PERSONALIZED MEDICINE TESTING SERVICES ARE NOT THE SAME. Chemosensitivity and chemoresponse are tested in various ways. One is highly successful, whereas the other is not so much...

Apparently, there are advantages of cytometric profiling versus gene testing. It's my understanding that tThe latter is known as molecular testing or target profiling and attempts to link surrogate gene expression to a theoretical potential for drug activity. This is nearly the opposite of WHOLE CELL CYTOMETRIC PROFILING in which living cancer cells obtained from each patient actually are exposed to dozens of candidate chemotherapy drugs and the true cell killing ability of each drug is measured. Guess that's a world of difference!

Relying on gene patterns is nothing more than a theoretical predisposition. No actual anti-cancer drug activity is ever demonstrated by the tests.

If I was having recurring tumors, failing over and over with this chemo combo after a few mnths of remaining stable, I would travel across the country to Larry Weisenthal, in Huntington Beach, Calif.

WEISENTHAL CANCER GROUP Specializing in the most important patient...you.

In searching the Internet, I came across these very edifying sites, and the name of our good friend GDPawell seems to keep popping up. How blessed we all are to have this man to turn to re this amazing answer to repeated failure.

Yet the medical profession, steeped in establishment thinking, conservative/mainstream thinking and bureaucracy is ready to leave us to fight the pharmaceuticals and the insurance companies and we stab our way to survival.

We need docs with vision, with open minds, with the ability to change decades old ways of seeing cancer and start using $$ from research toward real success. Isn't it time to take the guesswork out of the equation -- when it is YOU, AND ME AND OUR SISTERS on the line??

CSRA's | Cancer Survivors Network

2011 ASCO Annual Meeting | ASCO Daily News | Treatment for Patients with Solid Tumors

Andi