Mercy Women's Center
Research
Clinical Trials:
Clinical trials are available for
patients at the Woman's Center, especially those diagnosed with breast
cancer. Determining which trials are open at any point in time can be a
challenge for the patient, so Mercy Women's Center and Mercy Cancer
Center offer Nurse Navigators to assist you in learning more about the
studies in which you might want to participate.
If there are no open trials through Mercy that fit
your particular situation, then visit our LINKS page where you will find
the best web sites to learn about the multiple options available in the
United States.
Mercy-specific Research:
SCREENING BLOOD TEST TO
DETECT BREAST CANCER: Patients undergoing biopsies and/or breast MRI at
Mercy Women’s Center will be invited to participate in clinical trials
to facilitate research by scientists working on a blood test to detect
early breast cancer. Such a test would revolutionize screening and
diagnosis of breast cancer, yet very little attention has been given to
this goal in the past due to excessive reliance on mammography. Now that
the ‘miss rate’ of mammography has been established, we are in desperate
need of a ‘pre-screening’ blood test that tells us who should undergo
these additional studies.
Blood tests used to detect cancer recurrence
(commonly called ‘tumor markers’) are not sensitive enough to detect
early cancer. Blood tests used in genetic testing are one-time studies
that determine a ‘pre-disposition’ to breast cancer, but do not detect
the disease itself. Currently, there is NO reliable test on the market
to detect early breast cancer through blood testing.
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Dr. Alan Hollingsworth,
research director of Mercy Women’s Center, finds himself wedged in a
conversation with Nobel laureate James Watson, PhD, co-discoverer of the
structure of DNA (left) and Mark Skolnick, PhD (right), the scientist
who led the team that won the race to identify and sequence the BRCA-1
gene on chromosome 17. Based on this discovery, Dr. Skolnick went on to
launch Myriad Genetics, the premier company for genetic testing in the
world.
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With the foresight to realize that research for a
screening blood test will be more accurate when compared to breast MRI
rather than mammography, Dr. Hollingsworth has now accumulated thousands
of specimens, representing the largest such research reservoir in the
country where serum samples are tied to MRI results. Thus, multiple
biotech companies working on this agenda, as well as the Fred Hutchison
Cancer Center in Seattle, have collaborated with Dr. Hollingsworth.
In the immediate future, such a test would be
performed annually along with mammograms, guiding the radiologist to
perform further study with special X-ray views or ultrasound, and to
biopsy any abnormality. If these studies prove normal, then a positive
blood test would indicate to the radiologist that a breast MRI is the
next step. With an excellent blood test, confidence over time would
eventually allow such a test to be the SOLE method of screening,
reserving all imaging studies for women in whom the blood test is
positive.
For more information,
contact 405-936-5456.
BREAST MRI OUTCOMES: All patients undergoing breast MRI at Mercy Women’s Center will have information entered into an
exhaustive database, from which Drs. Hollingsworth and Stough will be
analyzing and publishing outcomes in the medical literature on:
pre-operative staging, diagnostic problems, high risk screening, and
breast implant problems. While Mercy Health Center launched breast MRI
into routine clinical use in the state of Oklahoma in January 2002, the
adoption of this modality nationwide is going to be gradual as critics
and skeptics focus on false- positives and cost (just as these same
groups criticize mammography), ignoring the extreme Sensitivity for the
detection of breast cancer (unparalleled by any other imaging modality,
including PET mammography). |
