Disappointed but Holding on to Hope

On Monday we traveled to the medical center to meet with Tim’s new doctor at MD Anderson’s Clinical Center for Targeted Therapies.  We spent almost five hours in clinic and learned a lot.

They offered us a clinical trial and 2 targeted therapies.  The clinical trial would be a random trial that there is no evidence that it would work.  It’s just a shot in the dark.

After the Dr. Tsomberidou explained the two targeted therapies, we signed consent for both of them.  The first one is T Cell therapy.  They drew labs today to see if Tim’s white blood cell type qualifies.  If it does he’ll have a biopsy of his liver tumor.  They will then extract white blood cells from him and engineer them to target the specific molecular makeup of his cancer.  The growing of these new cells would take 3-4 months.  After they are engineered in a lab, they could be infused through his port to fight the cancer.  (This will involve a 3-4 week hospital stay).

The other therapy is called IMPACT ii. They will take a second biopsy while they are getting the one for T cell.  They will then study 598 genes and the RNA  in them to determine what current chemo therapies would best target those specific genes.  This could be done through his port or pills.  Likely  week or bi weekly.

If he qualifies for T cell, he’ll do the impact ii while they engineer the new cells - basically as long as the cancer responds.   We wouldn’t go to T cell until the impact drugs stopped working.  The new T cells are good for two years in the lab so that’s good.  T cell has shown great results.  Some patients in complete remission.

We did the first part -bloodwork and started the financial approval process  - Monday.

FAST FORWARD TO TODAY - THURSDAY

The TCell nurse called Tim this morning to let him know that his white blood cell type is negative for the TCell therapy.  We are both disappointed but are still hopeful the IMPACT ii study finds something that will work. We anticipate he will have the biopsy next week.  Pray for easy recovery and precise hands of the doctor.