Some people like to know more about how the cytometric profiling tests actually are performed. Here is the sequence of events that will occur in personalizing your chemotherapy treatment plan.

The Cytometric Testing Process

  1. A biopsy sample containing a mixture of living cancer cells and other cell types is removed from the patient by a surgeon or other biopsy specialist.
  2. The biopsy is sent FedEx overnight to the Weisenthal Cancer Group laboratory in California.

  3. The mixed-cell biopsy specimen is dissociated, leaving intact mainly cancer cells and endothelial cells.
    • It is important to retain endothelial cells within the specimen in order to test new, targeted, and anti-angiogenesis agents.
    • The cancer cells are maintained as three-dimensional cell clusters throughout the testing process in order to preserve normal cell-to-cell signaling which materially influences sensitivity and/or resistance to chemotherapy drugs.

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    1. Dr. Grace and Dr. Weisenthal design a very broad panel of anti-cancer drugs for testing on the cancer cells. These are selected specifically for the patient’s clinical situation.
    2. Your living cancer cell clusters are distributed among 96 polystyrene microtiter plates. Each well will contain about 10,000 of the patient’s cancer cells.
    3. A different anti-cancer drug or drug combination is added to each plate well.
      • Each drug is tested at two concentrations for greater accuracy.
      • Positive and negative controls are also used.

    1. The cells are held in temperature and CO2 controlled incubator conditions during a 96-hour exposure period.
      • The cells are not "grown" or multiplied as in older methods as this could skew test results.
      • The testing process is not intended to precisely replicate what occurs in the human body - that would be impossible. Instead, the drug exposure conditions and drug concentrations are meticulously calibrated, through many years of assay development, to achieve the highest possible rate of correlation between what happens in the laboratory and what happens in the patient’s body.
    2. Following the 96-hour exposure period, the cell killing effect of each drug on the cancer cells is measured using a minimum of three and as many as five different cell death testing methods. Most labs use only one testing method.
      • Multiple tests are used for increased accuracy and to obtain the maximum amount of information about the patient’s cancer cells.
      • Each test measures different processes occurring within the tumor cell.
      • The choice of tests used for the analysis is based upon the patient’s cancer type, the specific drugs being tested and factors specific to the patient’s biopsy specimen.
    3. Each drug activity measurement is then analyzed personally by Dr. Weisenthal.
    1. Dr. Weisenthal performs a computer comparison of the various test results against an extensive, multi-parametric index database.
      • This step converts raw data into clinically-useful information for Dr. Grace.
      • Dr. Weisenthal has compiled his database over a twenty year period. The Weisenthal database is by far the most extensive database of its nature in the world.
    2. Cytometric profile data, consisting of patterns of sensitivity or resistance to each drug and drug combination tested are reported to Dr. Grace.
    3. Dr. Grace uses the Weisenthal test results, along with knowledge of the patient’s specific illness, medical history, and physical condition to design the chemotherapy treatment strategy that offers the greatest probability for success.