DALLAS (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- Knowing the enemy is an important part of any battle plan. Researchers are using that strategy in the fight against cancer. And this new targeted therapy scores a direct hit.

Rebecca Kearny searches for pecans in her yard, something two years ago she never thought she would do again. "They didn't expect me to ever get out of the hospital," she says. Cancer had taken over Kearny's body. Her liver was failing. Up to 235 pounds, fluid and tumors filled her chest.

That's when doctors gave her an experimental blood test and discovered her body was rapidly making too many copies of a gene called HER-2.

"The cells are very aggressive, and the patient has a poor prognosis," says Jonathan Uhr, M.D., an immunologist at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

Doctors immediately treated Kearny with the antibody Herceptin, also known as trastuzumab, which blocks tumor cell growth.

"This shows that the tumor burden disappeared," Dr. Uhr tells Ivanhoe. "And this graph shows that the tumor cells in the blood rapidly disappeared. Within 96 hours, they were down to 3 or 4 percent of where they were initially."

Dr. Uhr calls this blood test a non-invasive biopsy that could lead to more effective treatment for many types of cancer. "Targeted therapy is the wave of the future because of its lack of side effects and because it is new drugs in addition to chemotherapy that may make it possible to give less chemotherapy, perhaps none at all at some point."

And that could be lifesaving news for patients like Kearny.

Right now researchers are working on automating the process the blood goes through after it is drawn so doctors can determine treatment more quickly.

If you would like more information, please contact:

Jonathan W. Uhr, M.D.
UT Southwestern Medical School
6000 Harry Hines Blvd.
Dallas, TX 75390
(214) 648-1226