The value of clinical trials to me, a patient

People sometimes ask me whether it’s worth it to go into UCLA for my treatment. It’s a long drive on the best of days, even with the lighter pandemic traffic. Locally we have many medical resources that have helped many patients put cancer behind them. I tell them that the best reason for me to go to UCLA is that it gives me direct access to doctors that are creating innovative cancer treatments, especially for my type of cancer. And luckily, our health insurance covers UCLA facilities.

I have to admit that not all clinical trials live up to their expectations. The last two I participated in, starting last December, were testing treatments that did not work for me. Both of these treatments were targeted therapies that “marked” cancer cells to make it easier for the immune system to find and destroy them.

So after those recent disappointments, why am I entering yet another clinical trial instead of using an off-the-shelf treatment? My very first treatment in the summer of 2018 was a combination of rituximab, a monoclonal antibody therapy, and bendamustine, a chemotherapy drug. It worked well at pushing the lymphoma into remission. However, the remission lasted only about ten months. The drugs did their work, but the cancer came back. Perhaps there were trace amounts of cancer cells left in my body, or perhaps there is something about my body that continues to produce cancer cells.

I need a treatment that will keep working over time to prevent the cancer from spreading. One promising approach is to bolster the immune system to continuously hunt down cancer cells.

A recently completed CAR T cell clinical trial (which I did not take part in) had excellent results for most patients. I’m about to enter another trial which expands on that successful one by targeting cells in an even more robust way. Both of these are a type of targeted therapy. I have high hopes that I will be one of those patients that responds well to this treatment. The new study is run by UCLA directly. UCLA is a large research hospital that has the resources to fund and conduct such leading-edge studies. One of the doctors I’m seeing is the study’s main investigator.

It’s important to note that successful clinical trials can ease suffering for many people now and into the future. Although altruism isn’t my main motivation, it is helpful to know that I an taking part in such important work.

If you’d like to read more about CAR T cell and other targeted therapies, here are some references.

• What is targeted therapy?: https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/targeted-therapies#what-are-the-types-of-targeted-therapy
• CAR T Cell therapy explainer: https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/research/car-t-cells#evolution
• “CAR T at UCLA” explainer video with Sarah Larson, MD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfJ-NFE7r6s
• Description of the new study I plan to join next week: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04007029?term=NCT04007029&draw=2&rank=1

Best wishes to you one and all. God bless you.