Cancer patient beating the odds
By Dan Abendschein, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/13/2009 08:25:05 PM PDT
Last summer, Ruth Oliver was prepared to tell her friends and family goodbye and live out in peace the seven months her doctor had estimated she had left.
Today, she says she feels healthier than she did before she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, thanks to a local medical research team that has come up with a new treatement.
"They've extended my life and given me a better quality of life," said Oliver, a 73-year-old North Carolina native who is now living in Southern California to receive treatment.
The drug, called Rexin-G, was developed by a San Marino-based firm. It is now going through the clinical trial phase and has not yet been approved by the Federal Drug Administration.
The treatment, which is administered by intravenous drip three times a week, is designed to minimize tumors that chemotherapy cannot destroy.
Oliver has several such tumors: she may never be rid of them, but so far, the drug has helped keep them under control.
A career mortgage broker in the Durham area, Oliver was generally healthy until one Saturday in 2006 she found herself extremely itchy - a maddening symptom that bothered her to the point of going to the emergency room. Her doctors diagnosed her with pancreatic cancer.
She had surgery for her tumors and then had several bouts of chemotherapy and raditation treatements which left her exhausted, but still not rid of cancer.
"I could hardly lift my foot off the floor and walk, I was so tired," said Oliver. Last summer, her doctor in Durham noted that the latest chemo session still had not rid her of tumors, and that she would not live for more than six to seven months. But he suggested she investigate new cancer treatments being developed.
Oliver did extensive Internet research, and finally came across Epeius Biotechnologies, the San Marino firm that developed Rexin-G. She gets her treatment at a Santa Monica clinic, and is now living in Marina Del Rey.
The drug is part of a new kind of medical treatment called gene therapy. The Rexin-G treatment involves a specially-designed gene that interacts with cancerous cells.
Dr. Maria Gordon, the co-founder of Epeius who helped develop the drug, describes it as a "guided missle."
"It knows where to go," said Gordon. "It targets the cancer cells and gives them a self-destruct order."
The drug, she said, tells the cancer cells to stop reproducing, stopping their growth and their influence on the body.
The gene in the drug is designed to move into areas where there are cancerous cells, and to avoid areas where there aren't any.
It could be used by patients with all kinds of cancer, said Gordon.
The drug has testing status from the FDA, and Oliver is one of the patients undergoing clinical trials to see if it is effective.
Living in California has been an adjustment for Oliver, but she has visited the area before and is enjoying the weather, and the chance to live somewhere new.
Her apartment is within walking distance of the beach, something Oliver takes advantage of. "I'm just glad to have a chance to live in such a beautiful area," said Oliver, of her new home in Southern California.
dan.abendschein@sgvn.com
(626) 962-8811, Ext. 4451
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