Ordina supports the quest for individualised cancer treatment

“You can only treat someone properly if you know what makes them tick.” This simple phrase expresses the philosophy of Professor Emile Voest of Utrecht University Medical Centre in a nutshell. He and his team pay close personal attention to each patient. Apart from that, he is working on DNA research that should lead to an individualised form of cancer treatment for each patient in the future.

At times, some cancer patients may feel as if they are just a number on a production line. This is not the case for the patients being treated at the Medical Oncology Department of Utrecht University Medical Centre. For a start, Professor Emile Voest, heading up the department, is someone who prizes personal contact. “Every time a patient visits my consulting room, I make it a priority to find out more about their personal background. It is the only way in which you can treat someone properly. Every patient is unique – that is our motto.”

The value of personal contact lies in the fact that a treatment is more likely to succeed if the patient trusts his or her doctor. “This requires more than pure medical expertise from the doctor”, Emile Voest stresses. “If you get cancer, you find yourself in a pitch-dark room with no windows and no visible exit. Just imagine how relieved you would feel if someone walks in holding a torch. Well, we are the ones holding the torches.”

For a man with a sterling track record in cancer treatment, the image of a man walking into a dark room holding a torch is modest, to say the least. But it is a carefully chosen image nonetheless. “Cancer treatment is not simply a question of making a choice between black or white. The options all come in many shades of grey: from a treatment that may be very effective but which has a lot of side-effects to a less effective treatment that does not cause side-effects. Together with the patient we have to work out a personal plan. An 80-year-old patient with no close relatives will make different choices than a 35-year-old patient with a young family, even if they are both suffering from exactly the same symptoms.”

Mountains of data

After the treatment you still have to see whether it actually works. The fact is that every tumour is different. This is the premise underlying the study Professor Voest is currently working on, which involves compiling a separate profile for every tumour. “We hope to be able to use this information in the future to tell patients what type of treatment is likely to be most effective in their specific case.”

There is still a long way to go before this scenario becomes reality – it will probably take between five and eight years before the first findings are presented. Emile Voest explains: “Humans have 25,000 genes in their bodies. Analysing all of them, one by one, would cost over one million Euros per patient and the process would take three months to complete. So that is out of the question. That is why we have opted to start with the thousand most important genes. We hope that, in five years’ time, we will have access to technology that is capable of screening all of the genes at a reasonable price. This research project is unique in Europe. We do not know yet exactly how many tumours we will need to examine. That is what makes this type of study so exciting. What we do know for sure, is that we will have mountains of data to process. We need a team of bio-computer scientists to analyse all this information – computer experts with backgrounds in biology. People like this are very scarce.” In simple terms, they are drawing maps. “Just imagine looking at a map of the Underground and being told that one of the lines is blocked somewhere. Once you work out where the blockage is located, you also know that there is no point in taking remedial action further down the line. In other words, these maps take us one step closer to the best treatment.”

Patient comfort and information provision

Patient comfort is another key point, as a patient who feels good is more likely to benefit from treatment. We offer foot massages, for example, to patients who feel very tense during a course of chemotherapy. Patients can spend half an hour relaxing in a beautiful bathroom here in the ward, which has music and special lighting. We also give special attention to informing patients about their condition: young women with breast cancer have very different information needs, for example, from elderly men suffering from colon cancer. “This is another area where we employ a personalised approach. We believe that it pays off in delivering good results. We also need to treat many patients: after all, no one suffering from cancer wants to be placed on a waiting list. But patients also gain a huge amount from personal support and attention. We recently had an oncologist from another hospital working here on secondment and he complained that we were pampering our patients. It is hard to think of a better compliment.”

Sponsoring

Professor Voest has clear views about private-sector sponsoring of research projects: “I have yet to meet a cancer patient who says, ‘That sounds like a good treatment, but it has been paid for by a commercial company, so I do not want it.’” It goes without saying that I would never enter into any type of arrangement that would limit or influence the outcomes of my research. The small print is vitally important here. Which is why I am so pleased with the support we have been receiving from Ordina, they endorse our vision and are ready to support it. This type of research benefits tremendously from sponsors who are prepared to commit to a long-term partnership. In doing so, Ordina shows just how serious it is about its social responsibility.”

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