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This mouse has been infected with the same type of breast cancer Eileen Youtie has.
“I have what’s called Triple Negative.I have a genetic mutation called BRCA1, which increases your chance of getting breast cancer by 80 percent.”
Youtie paid Champions Oncology, a company based in New Jersey, to find a treatment that would work for her.
“And what we do is implant patient tumor tissues, or patient that has cancer…we implant that tumor tissue into an immunodeficient mouse, or a mouse that doesn’t have an intact immune system,so that we can grow that tumor and then test different drug therapies to be able to predict which drugs are going to work best in a patient.”
Davies says the laboratory can try out different drugs on a number of mice at the same time.Youtie had a number of treatments to choose from.
“We got the results, and the less toxic one worked equally to the more toxic one.”
There are drawbacks to using mouse models.It’s expensive.Youtie paid $30,000 because she wanted Champions to test a large number of drugs.
And, there are no guarantees. If a treatment works on a mouse, there is a 50 percent chance they could work for the patient.But if it doesn’t work for the mouse, it won’t work for the patient, either.
Another drawback is that patients delay their cancer treatment until the mouse results are in.
Studies have yet to show that using mice is better than the judgement of a good doctor.
The drug Youtie chose worked for her, so she is pleased with her choice to test the drugs on mice first, before she had chemotherapy.
Carol Pearson, VOA news, Washington.
