Cancer Diagnostic Technology
CET performs a number of quality control tests on a patient's cancer. An important quality control test that is performed by CET is to test a patient's cancer against a panel of standard anti-cancer drugs. The results of these test results are designed to determine which drugs are the most effective in killing a patient's cancer. The information is provided to the patient's doctor once available. The information is provided to the patient's doctor at no charge to the patient at this time. The patient is only billed for the bio-repository service. It is up to the patient's physician to provide the most comprehensive and best care and make the ultimate best medical judgment on behalf of the patient. To perform this test, a fresh sample of a patient's tumor is sent overnight to CET's facility. The tumor sample can be processed from either a surgical resection or from diagnostic biopsies. The patient's doctor and/or hospital make the necessary arrangements with CET to collect the tissue sample. The tissue sample is shipped overnight to CET's facility by FedEx carrier. The tissue sample is subjected to proprietary cell culture procedures that extracts, grows and maintains cancer cells under artificial conditions. Once cancer cells are grown to a sufficient number (typically taking 3-4 weeks depending on the amount of tissue that is provided), the cancer cells are subjected to a panel of standard drugs to determine the following information:
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The most effective individual chemotherapy that kills a patient's cancer.
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The measured drug concentration that kills a patient’s cancer.
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The comparison between the measured effective drug concentration and the calculated drug concentration from the dose of chemotherapy that the patient is going to receive.
Results of the analysis are then provided to the patient's doctor who will make the final decision on how to manage the patient's cancer.
The patient's cancer cells are preserved and cryo-stored for future use in case future testing is needed or if a living cell is a prerequisite to enroll into a clinical trial.
CET works with the patient and their doctor to also collect outcome clinical data in response to their chemotherapy to determine if the patient's tumor responded to chemotherapy. Data is stored in a secured and private database that helps the patient's doctor better treat cancer. The data is also used to assist the pharmaceutical industry to improve cancer drug development, which suffers from a 95 percent failure rate.