There are many new and little known tests that can give you an early warning about cancer and dramatically reduce the chances that you would find about a cancer when it is already in stage two, three or four. Why wait until the cancer is far enough along for you to develop signs and symptoms? What a blessing it would be to find out that you are in the early precancerous stage. Don’t wait for a tissue biopsy or PET scan to find out that you have cancer. It takes many years for cancer cells to form a tumor large enough to being detected or cause symptoms. A 2009 study, for example, showed that most early stage ovarian tumors exist for years at a size that is a thousand times smaller than the standard routine test can detect reliably.
We do new personalized cancer testing tests which include genomic cancer testing of gene biomarkers, circulating tumor cells, as well as chemo sensitivity tests to find out which chemotherapy is effective. This testing is performed in my office routinely on my cancer patients. Not only can it be detected early, cancer before it is seen on any traditional scan, but it can also tell me how many cancer cells the patient has circulating in his blood and what chemo and what natural substances are needed to kill the cancer. So let’s evaluate both in some detail.
The problem is that cancer cells don’t always stay in one place. Often the tumor cells will break free and ride the blood stream, settling in distant organs and changing the course of the disease. This is why testing the original biopsies is outdated and should not be used. Cancer cells can escape even when the original tumor is small, and some cancer cells mutate or change, outwitting even the most sophisticated treatment. Once cancer spreads and morphs into metastatic disease, it becomes much more difficult to treat and to survive. The problem is that cancer is very clever and unfortunately, evolves a way to resist treatment. We are now able to use tumor DNA testing to find mutations for resistance, as well as, what is driving the growth of the tumor. This allows me to use more precise treatment approaches and allows the patient greater treatment options.
Treatment Options
We use immunotherapy drugs have revolutionized cancer treatments. By evaluating tumor mutational burden and microsatellite instability through personalized testing, we can see if the new revolutionary checkpoint inhibitors will work in your cancer. Additionally, tumor vaccines using autologous whole cancer vaccines, dendritic cell vaccines, and supportive oligonucleotides (SOT), and natural substances with low dose chemo are also available. By evaluating the patient’s immune system prior to the administration of these therapies, I can optimize the immune system. I have found this to be extremely important in cancer therapies genomic cancer therapies with personalized cancer testing.