Both Jean Mckibben and Debbie Bozsa post on ACOR (Mailing List - Ovarian Cancer) about
molecular profiling at The Clearity Foundation and their
website:www.clearityfoundation.org multiple times this year.
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"I had my 4th debulking surgery on 3/3/11 for
my 5th recurrence. Initially, I did not think about to do molecular
profiling because I thought it will need a lot paper work, energy and money to
do it. When you go through lot of treatments for ovarian cancer, you feel
that every minute counts down your life, and you just want to spend time and
money for something enjoyable. Jean encouraged me to do the molecular profiling
when we exchanged email privately. I sent in my request for the test on
3/16/11, and I got my partial result in a month, and the final result on
5/16/11. I highly recommend the test. After my surgery, my chemotherapy choice
was Doxil or Topotecan. I tried Doxil first, and then molecular profiling
showed I am benefit from Doxil, not benefit from Topotecan. Now my doctor
treats me with the confidence based on those biomarkers. My CA125 has been
going down with 2 treatments although I have skin rash and lesions due to the
side effects of Doxil.
When you go to Clearity Foundation web site, there are 3
parts.
1. Caris Life Science: They do Target Now biomarkers for
drugs including: paclitaxel/docetaxel, cisplatin/carboplatin, trastuzumab,
letrozole, tamoxifen, doxorubicin, topotecan/irinotecan and temozolomide. They
will tell you from which drug you may benefit, which not, based on your biomarkers. There
is an 11 page report sent to your doctor, including biomarker description and
reference. They send the bill to insurances and patients.
2. Clarient, Inc:
They do more tests for biomarkers to compare your biomarkers to other ovarian
cancer patients in their Diane Barton Database. Dr. Laura Shawver, the founder
of The Clearity Foundation, will email the result to you and call you to
explain the result, and may suggest some new target therapy or clinical trials.
The Clarient test will be paid by Clearity Foundation.
3. The Clearity Foundation:
They help people to pay the test cost if patients have no insurance or their
insurances do not pay for the test. They have a one page grant application
for patients to complete, and can approve the application by email in one
day. People working at The Clearity Foundation are very friendly and
helpful. Please call 1-855-856-0654 if you have any question.
Please know that molecular profiling is different from
tumor sensitivity or resistant assay. Tumor sensitivity or resistant
assay uses fresh tissue to culture tumor cells, add different chemo drugs, and
then sees which chemo drug kills them (cancer cells). When I had my 3th
debulking surgery for my 4th recurrence one year ago, my doctor sent
for a tumor resistant assay. However, I did not get any result from the test because
my tumor cells did not grow in their cell culture. The molecular profiling test
uses tumor samples from biopsy or surgery in paraffin sections. The samples do
not need to be fresh, can be a few years old. They do special staining to find
biomarkers."
Yi
