New Brunswickers battling cancer may soon have access to personalized care that could drastically change their treatment and increase their survival rates.
A multi-million dollar cancer research project was announced Monday for the Atlantic Cancer Research Institute in Moncton.
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The province is investing $1 million in a project called “Personalize my Treatment.”
“We need to move away from thinking if we have two patients with breast cancer that they have the same disease,” said Dr. Rodney Ouellette, president of the institute.
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“I mean, more than likely they do not have the same disease, and treating them almost in a cookie cutter approach will give us what we have had in the past as far as results.”
He says the research project aims to increase cancer survival rates by attacking an individuals unique cancer cells based on their own personal DNA and how cancer cells travel and multiply in an individuals body.
Approach is tailored to individual patients
This approach tailors treatments to the individual, resulting in more effective and better tolerated treatments.
It’s the type of research that Health Minister Victor Boudreau says the province needs to be doing to become more innovative and to help grow the economy.
“The province, through the New Brunswick Health Research Foundation, is contributing $250,000 a year for four years for a total of $1 million. And in partnership with that, Merck Canada is also investing $1 million,” Boudreau said.
The drug company is also investing in a similar research centre in Quebec.
Dr. Ouellette says clinical trials of the personalized cancer treatments will begin in the next two weeks and up to 1,000 cancer patients in New Brunswick may be eligible to take part in those trials.
“We are looking at breast cancer, colon cancer, melanoma and a couple of others initially.”
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