LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – As UMC prepares to open its new cancer center, a new expert physician in immunotherapy treatment has opened the door for more options in Lubbock so cancer patients don\u2019t have to travel for big city cancer care.<\/p>\n
Dylan Cerbantez, from Hale Center, is going through his second fight with non-Hodgkin\u2019s lymphoma. What makes it even harder is he also suffers from a rare genetic disorder that affects his immune function, called Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome.<\/p>\n
The timing is good for Dylan to be able to try a treatment option under the guidance of Dr. Muhammad Bilal Abid.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did a lot of research on my own, kind of get a little bit worried when you\u2019re \u2014 you know \u2014 when the first line (of treatment) didn\u2019t work, is the second line going to work?\u201d Cerbantez said.<\/p>\n
Dr. Abid is part of a treatment team at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and UMC that has come up with a novel therapy to help Dylan. It\u2019s a regimen that targets diseases in two ways at the same time, called immunotherapy and bi-specific antibody therapy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is where the art of medicine really comes in. When a young man like Dylan does not have treatment options available to him, that really calls for some brave decision making,\u201d Dr. Muhammad Bilal Abid, TTUHSC hematologist\/oncologist, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDylan\u2019s choices for therapy, as he relapsed, were limited. In fact, there were none. Because it\u2019s very hard to give a T-cell modifying or T-cell redirecting therapy to an individual whose baseline immune function is not intact,\u201d Abid said.<\/p>\n
TTUHSC and UMC recently brought Dr. Abid to Lubbock as an expert in using these treatments to fight blood cancers.<\/p>\n
Dr. Abid\u2019s arrival and advances in immunotherapy treatments in the last five years have opened up the possibility of new treatment options.<\/p>\n
When Dylan had cancer the first time, he had to make numerous trips to Dallas, even forcing him to quit work because the treatment was so intense.<\/p>\n
In Hale Center, he had community support with his little brother\u2019s varsity basketball team. Even the opposing teams did what they could to help Dylan with the expense of treatment and travel.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth basketball teams purchased some shirts that we had made as a fundraiser. And they wore them to their games and their warm ups,\u201d Cerbantez said.<\/p>\n
Dylan\u2019s second fight against cancer comes with the blessing that he can stay at home now that Dr. Abid and this new treatment option is available in Lubbock.<\/p>\n
Dr. Abid said local access can only help give patients like Dylan an edge in their cancer fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe curative potential of these cutting-edge cancer therapies are no longer limited by scientific capabilities that we have. They are entirely limited by barriers to access. Some people have (access); some people don\u2019t,\u201d Abid said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only reason I didn\u2019t want to go to Dallas was because of the drive and because how far it was, and traveling after doing chemo. So doing it in Lubbock and having them make it available here, it was a weight off my shoulders,\u201d Cerbantez said.<\/p>\n
For many patients like Dylan in rural West Texas, fighting cancer has often meant long trips to Dallas or Houston.<\/p>\n
The new UMC cancer center opens Friday.<\/p>\n
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