Reporter David Cole wrote about Evergreen Hematology & Oncology in the December 10 issue of the Journal of Business. Download a PDF of the story.

December 2, 2009
Spokane Woman Turns to Evergreen, Raises Awareness about Lung Cancer

When Terisa Hawk, a non-smoker, was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer, the disease was so advanced it was inoperable. So she turned to Evergreen Hematology & Oncology for help. Watch a KXLY News report on the work of Evergreen's Dr. Stephen P. Anthony – and how Terisa hopes her clinical trial will help save a life in the future.

October 20, 2009
Evergreen to Test Plexxikon’s Investigational Cancer Drug PLX3397 in Cancer Patients

Evergreen Hematology & Oncology is one of a small number of facilities selected to join in a phase 1 clinical study of an oral investigational medication for patients with advanced, incurable solid tumor cancers on behalf of its sponsor, Plexxikon Inc.

The study drug is a highly selective and potent agent that targets and down-modulates three different host cell types in order to prevent or slow metastatic disease, particularly to the bone. The clinical study is for cancer patients (mainly breast or prostate, but may include other cancers) who are not responding to standard therapy and have no other treatment options available, but are still feeling well.

Phase 1 trials, which enroll only a small number of patients, are the first studies conducted in people – evaluating the safety, tolerability and other pharmaceutical properties of a new drug. Evergreen has initiated the phase 1 study with the first patient dosed and is among a few clinical sites which have been engaged to conduct the phase 1 clinical trial of this investigational medication in humans.

September 28, 2009
ACR Accreditation for PET Services

SPOKANE, Washington (September 28, 2009) – Evergreen Hematology & Oncology has been awarded a three-year term of accreditation in PET as the result of a recent survey by the American College of Radiology (ACR). Evergreen is one of only 16 facilities in the state of Washington to have its PET services accredited by the ACR, and only the second in Spokane.
                                                     
PET stands for Positron Emission Tomography, an imaging technique that locates the metabolic signal of actively growing cancer cells in the body. PET can actually detect both chemical and metabolic changes in these cells before anatomic and structural changes have had time to develop.

The ACR, headquartered in Reston, Va., awards accreditation to facilities for the achievement of high practice standards after a peer-review evaluation of the practice. Evaluations are conducted by board-certified physicians and medical physicists who are experts in the field. They assess the qualifications of the personnel and the adequacy of facility equipment. The surveyors report their findings to the ACR’s Committee on Accreditation, which subsequently provides the practice with a comprehensive report.

“It’s an honor,” said Evergreen’s Dr. Stephen P. Anthony. “ACR accreditation provides our patients and referring physicians with a high level of confidence – knowing that both our staff and equipment have passed rigorous evaluation, and that, as a result, only the highest quality care is being provided.”

The ACR serves more than 32,000 diagnostic and interventional radiologists, radiation oncologists, and nuclear medicine and medical physicists with programs focusing on the practice of medical imaging and radiation oncology and the delivery of comprehensive health care services.

August 18, 2009
Dr. Anthony’s Research Receives Boost

SPOKANE, Washington (August 18, 2009) – The Marilyn B. Gula Mountains of Hope Foundation has donated an additional $50,000 to the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) to fight advanced stages of breast cancer. The foundation’s most recent donation brings to $250,000 the amount it has raised for TGen; it also funds work at the University of California, San Francisco, and at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

The latest contribution was matched with other donations to the non-profit biomedical research institute to enable the hiring of a bioinformatician to help speed research in TGen’s Molecular Characterization of Circulating Tumor Cells Project.

This project – directed by Dr. Heather Cunliffe, head of TGen’s Breast & Ovarian Cancer Research Unit, and Dr. Stephen P. Anthony, who serves as Chief Medical Officer of TGen Drug Development Services – aims to guide chemotherapy choices among women with metastatic breast cancer, the most advanced stage of this disease.

“Breast cancer becomes metastatic when tumor cells have left the primary site, circulating through the bloodstream and forming tumors – often deadly – in other parts of the body,” he explained. Through genomic analysis of these circulating tumor cells, or CTCs, Anthony and his team hope to determine optimal treatment for each patient.

“We’re looking at women who are truly in a crisis situation,” said Anthony. In order to improve the detection, treatment, and management of this deadly disease, he added, “we need to better understand what we’re fighting.”

July 20, 2009
Dr. Anthony Co-Authors Promising Cancer Study

SPOKANE, Washington (July 20, 2009) – In a late-breaking abstract selected for, and presented to, the plenary session of the 100th annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Denver, Colorado, researchers demonstrated that molecular profiling of tumors may provide cancer patients with a longer progression-free survival than prior treatment regimens.

Evergreen Hematology & Oncology’s Stephen P. Anthony, DO, was one of the authors of the pilot study. He was joined by 21 others.

“This is exciting news,” said Anthony. “By targeting specific mutations within tumors, molecular profiling enables us to select and personalize treatment, giving existing technology and drug therapies a better chance of working.” It also improves patient quality of life, he added, by preventing exposure to drugs that have a limited chance of success.

The majority of patients with metastatic cancer (the spreading of the disease to other parts of the body) eventually run out of options, according to Anthony. “It’s what’s called ‘refractory cancer,’” he explained. “It simply doesn’t respond to treatment.”

The study, conducted at nine sites across the U.S., was designed to determine not only whether potential targets could be identified, but also if molecular profiling at this particular stage of disease would provide any clinical benefit. Shrinkage of tumors was shown in 47 percent of the profiled patients; 27 percent showed improvement in progression-free survival compared to the previous therapy. There is also a suggestion of improved overall survival in these patients.

May 5, 2009
New Research Reveals Prostate Cancer Vaccine May Extend Patients' Lives.

SPOKANE, Washington (May 5, 2009) – Researchers found Dendreon Corp.’s drug Provenge prolonged the lives of advanced prostate cancer patients by 4.1 months, raising fresh expectations that the controversial treatment is now poised for approval by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Evergreen Hematology & Oncology’s Dr. Stephen P. Anthony played a role in the trial.

The evidence presented in 2007 showed that the treatment, D-3263, increased survival in patients with metastatic disease by 18 weeks compared with patients given a placebo. After three years, 34 percent of those in the vaccine group survived, compared with 11 percent of those in the placebo group.

Dendreon’s latest announcement is “remarkable,” according to National Cancer Institute expert James Gulley, because scientists have been struggling for decades to harness the power of the immune system to fight cancer. Unlike traditional vaccines, such as the polio vaccine, Provenge doesn’t prevent disease; instead, it treats cancer by using a patient’s own cells to ‘train’ the immune system to recognize tumor cells and attack them.

Although Dendreon’s team didn’t directly compare Provenge with the standard treatment for advanced prostate cancer, the chemotherapy drug docetaxel, Gulley pointed out that “in other clinical trials, chemo helped patients live 2.4 months longer, but made many patients very sick.” In contrast, Provenge “causes relatively few harsh side effects.”

Investigators were able to observe that during their IMPACT trial, which included 521 men whose cancer had spread and wasn’t responding to standard hormone treatments. While some of the men received a dummy infusion, two-thirds were given Provenge, a treatment that is customized for each patient. In order to do that, physicians collected special blood cells from each patient that help the immune system recognize cancer as a threat. Those cells were mixed with a protein found on most prostate cancer cells and another substance to rev up the immune system. Then, the resulting ‘vaccine’ is given back to the patient as three infusions two weeks apart.

By trial end, investigators found that men with advanced tumors had a median survival of 25.8 months with Provenge, compared with 21.7 months with a placebo.

April 19, 2009
Personalized Medicine Helps Cancer Patients Survive

PHOENIX, Ariz. (April 19, 2009) – Cancer patients can survive longer under treatments based on their individual genetic profiles, according to a nationwide study released jointly today by Phoenix-area healthcare organizations.

The study shows that molecular profiling of patients can identify specific treatments for individuals, helping keep their cancer in check for significantly longer periods, and in some cases even shrinking tumors.

Study results were released today at the 100th annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Denver by Dr. Daniel Von Hoff, Physician-In-Chief of the Phoenix-based Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), and the study’s Principal Investigator.

Evergreen Hematology & Oncology’s Dr. Stephen P. Anthony was one of the top accruing physicians for this critical study, which included 66 patients at nine centers across the United States.

All of the patients had previously experienced growth of their tumors while undergoing as many as two to six prior cancer treatments, including conventional chemotherapy. However, after molecular profiling identified precise targets, new treatments were administered that resulted in patients experiencing significant periods of time when there was no progression of their cancer.

“This clinical trial was unique because patients acted as their own control,” said Dr. Von Hoff. “We compared each patient’s progression-free survival, following treatment based on molecular profiling, to how their tumors progressed under their prior treatment regimens, before molecular profiling.”

In a significant number of patients, the targeted treatments provided significantly longer periods when tumors did not progress, or even shrunk, added Dr. Von Hoff.

He said this clinical trial demonstrated the value of personalized medicine, in which treatments are prescribed based on an individual’s specific genetic makeup. The type of drugs, dosages, their delivery, and other treatment aspects – all are based on each patient’s individual medical needs.

Among the patients, 27 percent had breast cancer, 17 percent had colorectal cancer, 8 percent had ovarian cancer and 48 percent had cancers that were classified as miscellaneous.

Patients experienced varying levels of improvement. Among those with breast cancer, the period of progression-free survival increased for 44 percent of patients; for colorectal, 36 percent of patients; for ovarian, 20 percent of patients; and for miscellaneous cancers the improvement was seen in 16 percent of patients.

“With this trial, we are showing the power of personalized medicine using the tools we already have available to us. As these tools become more precise and more effective, the value of personalized medicine will increase,” Dr. Von Hoff said.

December 1, 2008
Evergreen Attracts Veteran Physician

SPOKANE, Washington (December 1, 2008) – Dr. Howard Stang, a practicing Spokane physician since 1983, has joined Evergreen Hematology & Oncology. Recently named by his peers as one of the Best Doctors in America®, he’s the only medical oncologist on Spokane’s north side to be elected continuously since 1996.

Following board certification in internal medicine in 1976, Dr. Stang trained as a fellow in the UCLA School of Medicine’s Division of Hematology/Oncology for three years. He remained there until 1983 as an assistant professor of medicine, after which he received certification from the American Board of Medical Oncology.

Dr. Stang is affiliated with Southwest Oncology Group, Puget Sound Oncology Consortium, Translational Genomics Research Institute, Pancreatic Cancer Research Team, and US Oncology – for whom he has served as sub-investigator in several clinical trials.

September 8, 2008
Evergreen Expands Expertise with Addition of ANRP

SPOKANE, Washington (September 8, 2008) – Advanced registered nurse practitioner Shanna Scott Majors accepted a position at Evergreen Hematology & Oncology, where she will assess, plan, and implement patient care.

Shanna received a BA in nursing from Carroll College in 1999. Following a 16-month stint in the Peace Corps as a health education volunteer in Mali, West Africa, Shanna began graduate studies at Gonzaga University here in Spokane, where she was awarded a Master of Science in Nursing degree and licensure as a Family Nurse Practitioner in 2004.

As a student at GU, Shanna logged more than 600 hours of training in family practice, pediatrics, and women’s health in Spokane, Seattle, Portland, and Helena, Montana. For four years following graduation, she provided care to the underserved and homebound, children with orthopedic needs, and breast cancer patients.

September 8, 2008
State-of-the-Art PET/CT Imaging Device Shows Patients What They’re Made Of

SPOKANE, Washington (September 8, 2008) – When it comes to diagnosis, staging, and treatment monitoring, nothing beats a PET/CT scanner.

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is used to locate the metabolic signal of actively growing cancer cells in the body. The technology can actually detect both chemical and metabolic changes in these cells before any anatomic and structural changes have had time to develop. Computerized Tomography (CT) provides a detailed picture of a patient’s internal anatomy, revealing the location, size, and even the shape of abnormal cancerous growths.

Evergreen’s PET/CT scanner is a state-of-the-art, dual-purpose imaging device that employs PET and CT technologies simultaneously. The resulting images are then fused into a single computer overlay, providing complete information on both tumor location and metabolism, staging and re-staging the cancer, and identifying the first step toward designing an individualized treatment plan.

“It’s a great machine,” says Jake Deehr, CNMT, TR(N), Evergreen’s Nuclear Medicine/PET Technologist. “Because it’s so much newer and faster than anything else in the area, we’re able to get more information in a shorter amount of time.”

While both technologies have been around for decades, it wasn’t until 2000 that PET and CT were combined in a single imaging device, enabling the detection not only of the presence of cancer, but also its biology. This knowledge enables physicians to develop appropriate, more individualized therapy approaches.

August 21, 2008
Renowned Cancer Researcher and Treatment Specialist Opens Spokane Practice

SPOKANE, Washington (August 21, 2008) – Dr. Stephen P. Anthony, a nationally known leader in cancer research and treatment, has returned to Spokane to open Evergreen Hematology & Oncology. From 2006–08, Dr. Anthony was with the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), a non-profit biotechnical institute in Phoenix, where he served as senior investigator and chief medical officer for drug development services.

Key to Evergreen’s treatment approach is early- through late-phase clinical research. While other cancer treatment centers may also participate in clinical trials, few can offer patients the level of knowledge that Dr. Anthony brings to his patients: fourteen years of genomics-based research experience, a leadership role within U.S. Oncology’s research division, and extensive writings and publications in the areas of cancer drug resistance, new breast cancer therapeutics, and the application of genomic data toward the individualization of therapy.

“The very latest in cutting-edge cancer treatments will not only provide healing,” said Dr. Anthony, “but also hope. Hope is absolutely critical in the fight against this disease, and, sadly, it can be – and sometimes is – overlooked in the course of treatment.”