Has anyone ever had a DNA test to see if you can take a certain chemo?

jnl
jnl Member Posts: 3,869 Member
edited July 2012 in Breast Cancer #1
A friend of ours oncologist had him take a DNA test to see if he could have the chemo Erbitux. His onco said it was to see if it was compatible for him. I've never heard of this and just wondered if any sister here had one before.




Thanks!

Leeza

Comments

  • New Flower
    New Flower Member Posts: 4,294
    #2
    Yes I took for Xeloda
    Still waiting for results, however have started medication 3 days ago
  • Lynn Smith
    Lynn Smith Member Posts: 1,264 Member
    #3
    New Flower said:

    Yes I took for Xeloda
    Still waiting for results, however have started medication 3 days ago

    That's interesting
    That's interesting to know.Never heard of it.I would do it in a heartbeat.I am allergic to alot of things and would want to know beforehand.Anytime I take a new medicine I get worried.This is the first time I've read or heard about this. I didn't need chemo but will get a test if I ever need it.

    I've read in our paper at when someone passes away the cause would say "Complications from Chemo".I always wonder what complication???

    Lynn Smith
  • NancyJac
    NancyJac Member Posts: 91
    #4
    I've heard of it but I am a
    I've heard of it but I am a bit skeptical about it. It supposedly determines if you have a genetic propensity towards having an adverse reaction to a particular drug. The testing is only available for certain drugs and it can be pretty expensive and take quite a while to get the results. Conversely, all chemo centers are staffed and supplied to deal with adverse chemo drug reactions. In some cases it seems that chemo important to halting or shrinking cancer growth could be delayed and put the patient at risk while awaiting DNA drug sensitivity results what at best only indicate that a particular person may or may not have a genetic propensity to have an adverse reaction to a particular chemical substance, not that she actually will or won't have a reaction.
  • SIROD
    SIROD Member Posts: 2,194 Member
    #5
    Heard of it
    I have heard of them also and on one of the boards I read, some of them have had them.

    Here is an interesting article in the NY Times - Health section today. The title is: In Treatment for Leukemia, Glimpses of the Future.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/health/in-gene-sequencing-treatment-for-leukemia-glimpses-of-the-future.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120708

    Here is a little of the first section:

    While no one can say that Dr. Wartman is cured, after facing certain death last fall, he is alive and doing well. Dr. Wartman is a pioneer in a new approach to stopping cancer. What is important, medical researchers say, is the genes that drive a cancer, not the tissue or organ — liver or brain, bone marrow, blood or colon — where the cancer originates.

    One woman’s breast cancer may have different genetic drivers from another woman’s and, in fact, may have more in common with prostate cancer in a man or another patient’s lung cancer.

    Under this new approach, researchers expect that treatment will be tailored to an individual tumor’s mutations, with drugs, eventually, that hit several key aberrant genes at once. The cocktails of medicines would be analogous to H.I.V. treatment, which uses several different drugs at once to strike the virus in a number of critical areas.

    Researchers differ about how soon the method, known as whole genome sequencing, will be generally available and paid for by insurance — estimates range from a few years to a decade or so. But they believe that it has enormous promise, though it has not yet cured anyone.

    With a steep drop in the costs of sequencing and an explosion of research on genes, medical experts expect that genetic analyses of cancers will become routine. Just as pathologists do blood cultures to decide which antibiotics will stop a patient’s bacterial infection, so will genome sequencing determine which drugs might stop a cancer.
  • Kylez
    Kylez Member Posts: 3,761 Member
    #6
    NancyJac said:

    I've heard of it but I am a
    I've heard of it but I am a bit skeptical about it. It supposedly determines if you have a genetic propensity towards having an adverse reaction to a particular drug. The testing is only available for certain drugs and it can be pretty expensive and take quite a while to get the results. Conversely, all chemo centers are staffed and supplied to deal with adverse chemo drug reactions. In some cases it seems that chemo important to halting or shrinking cancer growth could be delayed and put the patient at risk while awaiting DNA drug sensitivity results what at best only indicate that a particular person may or may not have a genetic propensity to have an adverse reaction to a particular chemical substance, not that she actually will or won't have a reaction.

    I've never heard of this
    I've never heard of this either. Thanks for educating me about this.


    Kylez
  • Noel
    Noel Member Posts: 3,095 Member
    #7
    SIROD said:

    Heard of it
    I have heard of them also and on one of the boards I read, some of them have had them.

    Here is an interesting article in the NY Times - Health section today. The title is: In Treatment for Leukemia, Glimpses of the Future.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/health/in-gene-sequencing-treatment-for-leukemia-glimpses-of-the-future.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120708

    Here is a little of the first section:

    While no one can say that Dr. Wartman is cured, after facing certain death last fall, he is alive and doing well. Dr. Wartman is a pioneer in a new approach to stopping cancer. What is important, medical researchers say, is the genes that drive a cancer, not the tissue or organ — liver or brain, bone marrow, blood or colon — where the cancer originates.

    One woman’s breast cancer may have different genetic drivers from another woman’s and, in fact, may have more in common with prostate cancer in a man or another patient’s lung cancer.

    Under this new approach, researchers expect that treatment will be tailored to an individual tumor’s mutations, with drugs, eventually, that hit several key aberrant genes at once. The cocktails of medicines would be analogous to H.I.V. treatment, which uses several different drugs at once to strike the virus in a number of critical areas.

    Researchers differ about how soon the method, known as whole genome sequencing, will be generally available and paid for by insurance — estimates range from a few years to a decade or so. But they believe that it has enormous promise, though it has not yet cured anyone.

    With a steep drop in the costs of sequencing and an explosion of research on genes, medical experts expect that genetic analyses of cancers will become routine. Just as pathologists do blood cultures to decide which antibiotics will stop a patient’s bacterial infection, so will genome sequencing determine which drugs might stop a cancer.

    This certainly is
    This certainly is interesting. I learned something today!

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