Sudbury oncologist says clinical trials help treat different types of cancers

The Canadian Cancer Society's April Daffodil Campaign is one of the organization's biggest fundraising efforts.

It brings in millions of dollars every year.

Dr. Lacey Pitre is a medical oncologist in Sudbury. She is also the regional system clinical and quality leader for Cancer Care Ontario. Pitre is responsible for spending some of those donated dollars on clinical trials that help people in northern Ontario with cancer.

Pitre cites one example of a clinical trial that takes patients who have had breast cancer. These patients are helping to determine if health interventions such as better food choices, weight loss and more exercise can reduce the risk of their breast cancer coming back.

Pitre says she doesn't know if there is ever going to be one cure for cancer but says prevention is key. The diagnostics to understand what caused a certain patient's cancer to grow are key as well, and as soon as the underlying molecular causes of that patient's cancer are understood, a plan can be developed to treat it.

"There is a lot of pressure to do right by patients," said Pitre. "And that's what we really strive to do every day."

Pitre once had an algorithm in mind as to how she would treat Stage 4 lung cancer. "Over the last three years, that algorithm has been completely turned upside down because of really excellent clinical trials," she said.

The first thing the clinical trials group wants to do, she explains, is to open the right clinical trial that will provide the most benefits for patients in northern Ontario and enrol enough patients to make it worth everyone's while.

She added that patients who have enrolled in those clinical trials allow physicians to understand how best to treat different types of cancers.

Pitre has a very personal reason for becoming a medical oncologist. She had just started university when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.

She described their experience at the Northeast Cancer Centre in Sudbury as "absolutely the best" with the best medical and radiation oncologists who discussed clinical trials with them.