Central Coast healthcare organizations share cancer care practices
A cancer diagnosis is one of the scariest things a person can experience, regardless of what stage it is caught at. However, advancements in treating all different types of cancers are happening at a rapid pace, and Central Coast healthcare organizations are trying to stay at the forefront as well.
Matt Baumann, vice president of Greater Central Coast Cancer at Sutter Health, said that comprehensive cancer care is, at its core, about treating the person with the illness, and not just the illness itself. Advancing this kind of care begins with the clinical trials that make it permissible, which the Central Coast is paving the way for.
The Ridley-Tree Cancer Center, located in Santa Barbara, is the hub for comprehensive cancer care on the Central Coast, focusing on the palliative experience of life for the person fighting the illness, screening for early detection, advancing biotechnology as curative treatment and providing support services.
“Under one roof and with complimentary service, we’re able to offer expert diagnosis, surgical, medical and radiation oncology, and then full wrap-around service that we would call cancer support and integrative services that helps navigate a patient through what is really a complex journey and then additional supportive care,” said Baumann. “So whether that’s acupuncture or art and art instruction, wellness classes, yoga, things like that, it’s kind of our whole person, approach to treating the individual and not just the disease.”
Clinical trials are a huge actor at the forefront of advancing comprehensive cancer care and act as a genesis for changing the streamlined standard of care.
The Sutter Health system hosts around 150 clinical trials. Ridley-Tree Cancer Center has 27 locally open trials which are unique to our patient population here on the Central Coast.
“The goal of clinical research is to challenge that status quo,” said Baumann. “Potential game-changing technologies have to make it through the phases of clinical research until they’re ready to be mainstream treatment, and once they are, technically if you have the technology and you have the expertise, you’re able to administer that standard of care treatment.”
Biotechnological advancements beginning with clinical trials aid the care process. Clinical trials involve a process that takes four phases of completion.
At Sutter Health, involvement in clinical trials is key to being ahead of the curve once treatments reach the mainstream.
“One of the cool things here is that all of this innovation starts with a clinical trial. But to be a leader in some of this space, you have to have been an early adopter in the clinical trial, so you get more repetition with whatever the innovation is,” said Baumann. “This also gets us early access when these are approved drugs and approved treatment methods that are going to support the greater Central Coast Community, which is pretty vital.”
Sutter Health is currently leading the advancement of nuclear oncology, an emerging therapy that uses radiopharmaceutical drugs to target specific cancerous cells with radioactive particles, historically used as a diagnostic tool.
“You’ll hear about nuclear imaging, radionuclide imaging, nuclear scans, but all of this technology basically helps doctors find tumors, see the spread of cancer throughout the body and there are now emerging treatments that also leverage that same technology to target specific cancer cells throughout the body, that that can be seen really or detected only through nuclear imaging,” said Baumann.
Comprehensive cancer care also focuses on early detection and diagnosis, whether through advancements in nuclear oncology or other screening advancements underway in clinical trials.
Part of advancing care in the Central Coast region is by advancing community engagement in the matter and cultivating a well-informed population so that routine health checks are implemented to catch the disease early.
“Screening and diagnosis is absolutely vital. When we look at our role as a health system, we can’t just focus on treating cancer. We need to focus on early detection through routine screening and accurate diagnosis at the earliest possible moment,” said Baumann.
“As medical organizations and healthcare institutions, it’s part of our responsibility to educate the local community and make sure that people understand changes in screening guidelines.”
Technological breakthroughs over the last decade are a springboard for medical breakthroughs as biotechnology plays a pivotal role in the advancement of cancer care, said Dr. Chirag Dalsania, a hematologist/oncologist at Dignity Health — St. John’s Hospitals.
“The treatment options have significantly improved over the last even less than 20 years, like immunotherapy drugs, targeted therapy and vaccine-based therapy, those are all the newer modalities that have had significant improvement in the cancer care and the survival,” said Dalsania.
However important the biotech industry is for cancer care, the future is uncertain as research and clinical trials are vital in making these breakthroughs.
The Donald Trump Administration has already made cuts across several federal health agencies, with biotechs becoming increasingly worried that this will lead to longer times to get products approved as well as a loss of potential funding.
“Cutting in the research funding will really make it hard for all the big institutions to carry on with the clinical trials and the drug development and therapeutics,” said Dalsania. “It will definitely affect the overall research and drug development. So any new therapeutic that is being studied in the clinical trial can get delayed… that can directly impact the cancer care.”
Although impacts to funding may affect research, advancement of care is still on the horizon as many healthcare providers and institutions look to early detection as revolutionizing the fight against the disease.
“When we say that we want to be the most connected, integrated health system for getting and staying well, our charge is to integrate every aspect of care across all specialties, including primary care. To stay connected with our patients and to communicate with them in a really connected way, in the way that the patient is going to respond to you best, and then focusing not just on getting well, but also on staying well in the process,” said Baumann.
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Correction: This article was updated on April 18 to state how many clinical trials are in the Sutter Health system currently.
