This is such a wonderful breakthrough!
Instead of freezing a patient's biopsied tumor samples, live samples can be preserved and tested in the lab to evaluate treatments and potential risk to healthy cells.
This is SO much better that guessing about treatments, based on statistics and reports from the companies that make the drugs.
It will ABSOLUTELY lead to fewer deaths caused by the treatment itself, will help determine better treatments for older patients, and hopefully check normal cells for toxicity, thereby reducing side effects.
While I am usually the person who says, let's wait and do lots of testing before we make this a standard - in this case, I would love to see this procedure implemented as soon as possible. It is not a new treatment that is untested in humans, it is a new procedure that occurs outside the body, is completely harmless to the patient, will improve their treatment options and outcomes... there are NO down-sides to moving forward with this.
And since it was developed at a University, and not a private drug company, the information is publicly available.
Wow.
Seems like advances in cancer are moving forward exponentially - we may find a cure in our lifetime :)
It sounds completely reasonable to me, we are in the Stem cells and molecular biology era. Good for this group
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