I am not only a GI oncologist who sees patients, but I am also running a laboratory. My research tries to understand why some colon cancers respond to chemotherapy and others don’t, and why some colon cancers recur after successful removal by the surgeon.
I am trying to change the way we treat patients with colon or rectal cancer. Over the last 10 years we have identified genetic signatures which help us choose the most effective and least toxic chemotherapy. In my practice every patient with newly diagnosed colon cancer is genetically tested for KRAS and two genes which show whether FOLFOX chemotherapy is more likely to be successful.
Today when a patient walks in with metastatic disease only in their liver, we think about a possible cure depending on number, size and location of those metastases. It is important to choose the most effective therapy since that can be the difference of a chance of curative resection or not.
Our patients at the University of Southern California (USC) have been incredibly supportive in donating their blood and tissues for our research. Our expertise in this area also is essential to understand to develop new drugs. When you know why tumors grow and escape chemotherapy, you may be able to develop a novel drug to attack cancer more effectively. That is exactly what we are doing.
Not only our patients but foundations and private donors are helping us to change the way colorectal cancer patients will be treated in the future. Our goal is to cure more and more patients by developing better drugs. Two foundations, the Dhont Foundation and the San Pedro Guild in San Pedro, California, have supported us in the past. With their help, our research group was the first to identify critical genes for new drug development. Based on our findings we have started to develop our own drugs.
There is no doubt that in a couple of years, every patient undergoing chemotherapy will be tested to select the most effective and least toxic therapy. We will make sure this will happen sooner than later.
January 12, 2009 at 11:04 am, Jack Straw said:
Thank you for all you do!
January 12, 2009 at 11:27 am, Heinz-Josef Lenz said:
you are very welcome HJL
January 12, 2009 at 12:02 pm, Brian said:
Dr Lenz,
Do you have any thoughts on research/treatment for small intestine cancer? Perhaps there would be interest in a blog entry on the small intestine?
January 12, 2009 at 2:38 pm, Heinz-Josef Lenz said:
More than happy to reply. There are interesting development on small bowel cancers. There are challenges depending where they develop. For example, small bowel cancer close to the stomach or close to the pancreas or close to the colon may act differently. We also do genetic screening for these tumors since it is not clear what the best chemo is. Recent studies showed that FOLFOX is an effective therapy. HJL
January 13, 2009 at 11:03 pm, Sue said:
Dr. Lenz,
When are the C-08 results due? Do you know how its looking for comparison between the avastin vs. just folfox?
Sue
January 14, 2009 at 11:56 am, Heinz-Josef Lenz said:
we only have the safety data for C08 which showed that there was no signficant toxicities associated with avastin, the results are expected in 2010. HJL