GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic Suzie George watches as nurse Terrin Eichwald starts her chemotherapy on July 1, 2008 in Ellensburg. George, who has breast cancer, chose to stay in central Washington for her cancer treatment rather than go to Seattle. "I want to encourage people not to bypass North Star" for their cancer treatment, said George. Links   E-mail             Print              Comments Advertisement

ELLENSBURG -- When Susan George was first diagnosed with breast cancer, friends advised her to go to Seattle for the latest and best treatment.

"They said I had to go to the west side, to Fred Hutch or UW or one of those big hospitals," said George, 65.

But after George met the oncology team at North Star Lodge in Yakima and learned about the opportunities for new treatments there, she decided to stay put.

"Why should I have the hassle of going over the pass and dealing with the traffic and the parking in Seattle?"

While the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington are renowned research institutions, North Star Lodge has significantly increased access for patients in Central Washington to the latest weapons to fight cancer through an affiliation with Houston-based US Oncology Inc., a for-profit cancer-services network.

George, a retired teacher who has a horse farm in Kittitas County, said the opportunity to participate in that research has been a high point in her battle against cancer.

North Star recently expanded its research capabilities. US Oncology selected the facility, which is owned by Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital, as one of 12 out of more than 400 research sites in the U.S. to begin Phase I trials, the first use of a new drug in people where safety is monitored closely. There are four phases, or hurdles, in bringing a drug to market.

Phase I studies usually involve more laboratory samples and patient monitoring than the larger, more advanced Phase III trials. Due to some of the drug and blood-sample handling and processing, special equipment may be required, such as a freezer that keeps materials at 70 degrees below zero.

"There's a lot more work involved with the care and treatment of each patient on a Phase I trial, and not every clinic is able to accommodate this," said Beth Parker, clinical research coordinator at North Star. "The rewards for us here in Yakima include being able to offer our patients new and novel treatments that could possibly not be available to the general public for several years."

Dr. Tom Boyd, research leader for US Oncology at North Star, said patients in rural communities have had a difficult time participating in new drug trials at large university-based research hospitals.

"The old paradigm was the research would trickle down from the university to the community practices. It just wasn't a very efficient model," Boyd said.

The decentralized model used by US Oncology means both wider access to drugs and lower costs to run the trials. "We are faster than a big research institution," Boyd said.

North Star isn't new to clinical trials. In the 1990s, Internal Medicine Associates, the practice that eventually became North Star, participated in a ground-breaking national breast-cancer prevention study known as Star. Doctors here are still following 11 patients in a subset of the Star study that's examining the effect of treatment on aging and mental skills such as problem solving and memory.

Parker said approximately 600 patients were prescreened to participate in clinical trials last year, with 71 patients actually enrolled. Not every cancer patient is automatically a candidate for a trial because of the stage of their disease. And not all patients want to participate.

"We have some people who are actually too gung-ho and want to try anything, and we have others who want no part of it," Parker said.

For George, the decision was not immediate. She studied up on the drug she would be taking -- called lapatinib -- and peppered her doctors with questions. "I wanted to know all about it," she said.

At the time, the drug was in Phase III trials, which means it had proven safe and effective to a considerable degree on a particular form of cancer. The Phase III trial would compare the new drug with the current standard treatment.

Last year, George was placed in a group of patients that took only the still-experimental lapatinib. Another group took the new drug in combination with another, established medication.

One of the biggest advantages, George said, was that she could take the drug orally at home and eliminate the weekly drive from her horse ranch in Ronald to North Star's outreach clinic in Ellensburg, where she took intravenous treatment.

"What was thrilling was that they were pills. That was freedom," said George.

The drug won final approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration not long after George began taking it. Now known by its brand name Tykerb, the drug works to deprive tumor cells of substances they need to grow. George is proud to have been one of the 400 women with advanced breast cancer to test the drug.

She figures Tykerb gave her an extra eight months beyond the 21/2 years she was projected to have upon her 2005 diagnosis. She continues to take the medication in combination with another treatment, but her cancer has reappeared and doctors are looking for a different drug to pair with Tykerb.

In the meantime, she encourages anyone newly diagnosed with cancer to first look for help in Yakima.

"I want to encourage people not to bypass North Star Lodge," George said. "Yes, there are the big names on the coast, but I would not have done anything differently."

Clinical trials
Current cancer clinical trials offered at North Star Lodge:
• brain, bone, breast, head and neck cancer
• lymphoma, blood disorders
• lung, prostate, colon, cervical cancer
• melanoma, leukemia, renal cell cancer

* Leah Beth Ward can be reached at 577-7626 or lward@yakimaherald.com.