Joining Forces To Improve Lung Cancer Treatment

[gpawelski]

Prevention, personalized therapies and closer collaborations between surgeons, medical oncologists and radiation oncologists will result in better outcomes for lung cancer patients and those at risk, a leading European expert says.

"Lung cancer is a complex disease. It is one of the most complex cancers, and the more we learn about the biology of the disease, the more we realize that improved cancer care will result from multidisciplinary treatment," said Prof Robert Pirker, from the Medical University of Vienna, Austria.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/149545.php

[gpawelski]

Joining forces with collaborations between surgeons, medical oncologists and radiation oncologists can result in better outcomes for lung as well as all other cancer patients. While patients may need any one of a wide array of doctors, each may handle only one aspect of care. Patients need a "team" of doctors, with one to step forward to serve as quarterback, and have easily accessible electronic medical records.

The benefits of molecular targeted therapies, however, may impart a clinical benefit by stabilizing tumors, rather than shrinking them (substituting shrinkage for stabilization). Molecular targeted therapies need approaches to determine optimal dosing, to assess patient adherence to therapy, and to evaluate treatment effectiveness.

What would be more beneficial is to test pharmacodynamic endpoints with the ability to measure multiple parameters in cellular screens now in hand using flow cytometry. Using a systems biology approach where compounds are first screened in cell-based assays, with mechanistic understanding of the target coming only after validation of its impact on the biology.

Whether it is one protein alone (unlikely) or in combination with other proteins and other mechanical factors, it could be vastly more beneficial to assess the net effect of all processes (systems) instead of just individual molecular targets.

[TJones]

"Joining forces with collaborations between surgeons, medical oncologists and radiation oncologists can result in better outcomes for lung as well as all other cancer patients. While patients may need any one of a wide array of doctors, each may handle only one aspect of care. Patients need a "team" of doctors, with one to step forward to serve as quarterback, and have easily accessible electronic medical records."

This is exactly the way that MD Anderson Cancer Center works. When my husband was accepted at MDACC he was assigned a Thoracic Medical Oncologist who was the Coordinating Physician on his team of doctors. She then added a Thoracic Surgeon and a Neurosurgeon. Other specialists were added and/or consulted as needed. By the end of his treatments at MDACC he had a team of twenty three different specialists. When a change in his treatment was needed or added the “team” gathered together to discuss the treatment and coordinate all aspects of it.

All of my husbands testing and treatments were done at MDACC. All patients are given a Patient Identification Number and that number is used for everything you at MDACC. Every test, every appointment, every doctors report, radiology report, lab report, MRI, CT-scan, PET scan, everything goes to an electronic medical record that is accessible to every doctor on your team. This kept testing from being repeated and no one had to wait for a report from another doctor or department. MDACC also has their own Emergency Center that is accessible to MDACC patients only. I only had to give them my husbands PIN and the doctors treating him in the Emergency Center had access to all of his medical records immediately.

MDACC’s system of using a “team” of doctors and giving them the ability to access the patients records immediately made a huge difference in my husbands overall cancer treatment at MDACC. It also helped that each patient is assigned a Patient Advocate, Social Worker, and Schedule Coordinator. At the end, MDACC assigned a “Palliative Care Team” for my husband and they too were great.

I probably sound like an advertisement for MDACC but I just wanted to follow up on this post and let you know that this system of care really does make a huge difference for cancer patients and their families.

This is not to say that I agreed with every doctor or every line of treatment for my husband. There are a number of things I would have done differently if I had known then, what I know now.

Link for MDACC

http://www.mdanderson.org/about-us/

I probably should note that my husband was first diagnosed with Stage IV Non-small cell Lung Cancer with a Metastic Brain Tumor.