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At the Elliott-Elliott-Head Center,
the third area that completes our comprehensive services
is our in-house clinical laboratory. While many medical
clinics send out their clinical laboratory testing,
a practice that not only delays test results but also
can be less reliable, we perform most of our laboratory
testing ourselves. We believe that the results
of our patients' laboratory tests are too important
to trust the testing to others. Besides doing routine
testing, our clinical lab plays an integral role in
patient care by measuring tumor markers and doing immunology
testing.
Tumor Markers
Women who have been treated for
breast cancer need careful follow-up to monitor for
recurrence, as it is important to detect it early if
it does occur. We have found several tumor markers useful
for early detection of breast cancer recurrence and
we utilize the most advanced laboratory tests to measure
these tumor markers. These markers are proteins
that will be present in the blood when a metastatic
tumor begins to grow after local control of the disease.
When tumor markers demonstrate recurrence, we
may recommend chemotherapy, anti-hormone therapy or
immunotherapy.
By testing your blood for CEA (carcinoembryonic
antigen), we can often pick up a very early primary
or recurrent breast cancer. Depending on your risk of
breast cancer, this test may become part of your routine
screening beginning at age 35.
The tumor marker CA 15-3 is a more
specific blood test for the early detection of breast
cancer recurrence. We may test for elevated CA 15-3
every three months, every six months or once a year.
Although elevated CA 125 tumor antigen
is most often related to ovarian cancer, we have found
that the CA 125 tumor marker can also be elevated in
recurrent breast cancer.
Immunology Testing
- In support of our vaccine program,
we monitor the immune status of our patients. Patients
with poor immunity to their tumors or to antigens
expressed by their tumors do not do as well as patients
with good immunity. Lymphocyte Blastogenesis
Assays are done to determine if patients have depressed
immunity to their breast cancer cells and breast cancer
antigens. At our Center breast cancer patients
with depressed immunity are vaccinated against their
own tumor cells, a breast cancer tumor cell line and
breast cancer antigens. These antigens are combined
with biological adjuvants (IL-2 and GM-CSF) to produce
our patented vaccine. We hope to turn on both
the cellular and humoral immune systems in our patients
to destroy occult and known metastatic disease.
- The serum protein IL-6
is also measured in the breast cancer patients. High
levels of IL-6 suggest that the patient may not respond
to anti-hormone therapy, but may be a good candidate
for treatment with our patented breast cancer vaccine.
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