Sorry for not posting in a while. Expect something from Otto as soon as the vicodin wears off.Â
Otto went in for surgery today to have a small piece a tumor from his liver removed. Although he didn’t heed my suggestion of having a zipper put in to make future surgeries easier, he was in an out by noon today and is recovering at his sister’s house in southern Cali.
The plan is to use the cells to grow in a lab and see how they react to specific chemo treatments. This is called Functional Tumor Cell Profiling. This will allow Otto to refrain from injecting a ton of chemicals into his body that are toxic but may not be toxic to the cancer. More info on this treatment option.
Your thoughts and prayers are felt deeply and contribute to his healing. Please keep them coming.
I have a few cases of Otto wine left from the Holiday Soiree, Please let me know if you would like some. Big Thanks to the Angels of Bass, all of the designers and artist and Mike G for making it a great event!
Much Love,
Lee
In Functional Tumor Cell Profiling with “cell-death” assays, there is no growing of cells as in the old “cell-growth” assays.
Cells are taken fresh “live” in their three dimensional, floating clusters. Cells are cultured in conical polypropylene microwells for 96 hours to increase the proportion of tumor cells, relative to normal cells.
Functional Tumor Cell Profiling is the one test in oncology that can have the greatest immediate potential to improve therapy selection for “individual” cancer patients, not the “average population.”
Data from studies demonstrate close correlation between prospective predictions of drug activity and patient chemotherapy response and overall survival.
When individual patients are treated with drugs “active” in the assay, they have vastly superior response and survival rates than when they are treated with drugs which are “not active” in the assay.
Peace and tranquility during your recovery Otto!