Custom Cancer Treatment Embraces Science

By Kelly Garrison
Features Editor

There’s a battle against cancer on 29th Street — and Dr. Robert Nagourney says he’s fighting it with the best weapon science has to offer.

It’s been 14 years since he founded the Rational Therapeutics center there to offer cancer patients personalized treatment he says can’t be found anywhere else. Nagourney says he has high hopes to increase cancer survival rates through his treatment center in Long Beach.

“We began testing human cancers to see what drugs kill them, and then we put it together as a clinical program,” he said. “It’s the study of individual care.”

Patients can either send tissue samples to his laboratory or have the procedure done in his office. Samples are typically “about the size of a thimble,” he explained.

“We use tissue from the biopsy to determine the drug,” Nagourney said. “It’s as if you draw out their profile.”

Once collected, the doctor puts his medicine to the test, but not on the patients. Drug combinations are tested in his laboratory to determine which medicines respond most effectively. Before making his recommendation, Nagourney examines each of the results under a microscope.

Patients find out results within ten days. At that point, Nagourney said, he eliminates drugs that will not work, “saving valuable time in the treatment process.”

“(The procedure) can be used on almost any cancer as long as the patient is well enough and can have a biopsy done,” he said.

He said his idea for treatment stemmed from his studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

Specializing in the studies of blood and malignant tumors, he said he wanted to branch away from the idea “one treatment fits all” and the pattern of “administering drugs according to rigidly standardized treatment regimens.”

“People couldn’t get (personalized treatment) to work too well,” he said. “But I got interested in doing it. I thought, ‘Shouldn’t we be a little more expansive — not just giving off-the-shelf treatment?’”

While he already treats patients from all over the world, Nagourney said he hopes to expand the services offered by Rational Therapeutics’ services in the near future. The Angels Baseball Foundation moved that idea forward on May 30 with a $10,000 donation to pay for cancer research projects.

His services are provided in association with Long Beach Memorial Medical Center. Nagourney also is the medical director of the Todd Cancer Institute at the hospital, where he specializes in laboratory directed cancer therapy, he said.

“Without individual treatment, you’re flying blind,” he said. “The fact that we can take patients that no one can treat and make them better is rewarding.”

Rational Therapeutics, 750 E. 29th St., was founded in 1993 to offer solutions to treat cancer. For more information, call 989-6455 or visit www.rationaltherapeutics.com.