The Side-Out Foundation, established in 2004 by a group of individuals drawn together by their love of volleyball and a passion to be a part of the war against breast cancer, and its Dig Pink? Volleyball Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign, will launch a first of its kind clinical trial this month to examine the effects of individualized treatment on patients with metastatic breast cancer. Individualized treatment, known as targeted therapy, provides doctors a better way to tailor cancer treatment and offers the hope of more precisely targeting the cancerous cells, which would reduce side effects and improve quality of life.The trial protocol will bring together the diverse skills and unique experience of community oncologists, nurses and researchers in the field molecular medicine. Clinical trials will occur at TGen Clinical Research Services (TCRS) at Scottsdale Healthcare and Fairfax Northern Virginia Hematology – Oncology. TGen Drug Development Services (TD2) will manage the trial for the Side-Out Foundation. The two major contributing laboratories are Caris Diagnostics, and George Mason University’s Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine.This pilot study follows on the heels of the Bisgrove Trial, which indicated cancer patients can survive longer under treatments based on their individual genetic profiles. Results were reported in April 2009 at the 100th annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Denver by Dr. Daniel Von Hoff, Physician-In-Chief of the Phoenix-based Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), TGen Clinical Research Services TCRS at Scottsdale Healthcare and CarisDx, a leading provider of integrated anatomic pathology and oncology testing services. The study included 66 patients at nine centers across the United States, including Scottsdale Healthcare.While the Bisgrove Trial, named after longtime Scottsdale Healthcare supporter Jerry Bisgrove, a former patient at Scottsdale Healthcare and a member of the Scottsdale Healthcare Foundation Board of Trustees, was a broader-based solid tumor cancer study, the results of this study indicated the potential clinical benefit of a molecular-based personalized therapy selection strategy for patients with recurrent and/or metastatic disease. Intended to provide real time treatment recommendations to physicians, this metastatic breast cancer trial will be conducted over the next 24 months.Researchers will utilize these advanced molecular profiling technologies, focusing on tailoring therapy for each patient based on the individual genomic and proteomic molecular portrait within the metastatic lesion itself. The patient would then be treated with a single agent based on the aggregate information provided by the genomic and proteomic molecular profiling analyses.High schools and colleges across the country will host volleyball matches to “pink-out” the stands this October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, in support of this new research.The Side-Out Foundation is continuing that momentum by attracting more than 1,000 additional high schools and colleges to compete in similar volleyball tournaments in order to raise $1,000,000 in support of breast cancer research and the social and physiological aspects of the disease.
