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Clinical Research Creating New Options to Battle Breast Cancer in San Antonio Women

Publication: WOAI-TV (NBC, San Antonio)
08/07/2019

Right now, in San Antonio clinical research is being used to help eliminate breast cancer in women.

For Kelly Moughon, a leap of faith combined with a positive attitude turned her whole life around.

She was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer in May of 2017, while she understood and felt the dread of the diagnosis, she was determined to make her mark.

"Your world drops out but you gotta put your big girl panties on the next day and conquer it." Moughon said.

The mother of 3 quickly enrolled in a clinical trial testing a type of immunotherapy drug called KEYTRUDA in combination with chemotherapy.

The result as explained by Sharon T. Wilks, M.D., FACP with Texas Oncology-San Antonio Northeast, was a pathological complete response, which she explained.

"Someone looked at the tissue complete remission where there was no trace or evidence of residual disease.” Wilks said.

Wilks described the treatment as something that helped boost the immune system, as opposed to traditional chemotherapy treatments where a patients immune system would take a pounding.

The result is a medical treatment that hits the DNA of a patient, and improves survival rates.

"Not only does it help shrink the cancers in the breast, it also prevents cancer spreading to the body." Wilks said.

In a word of warning, Dr. Wilks made it a point to say the process was not pain free.

"She did experience all of the traditional side effects of chemotherapy there was heart loss aspects of nausea things like that." Wilks said.

But early results brought a realization for Moughon, the treatment was working.

"Within the first two treatments I had already notices the swelling had gone down and the pain gone away."

Now Moughon has a new lease on life, she is scheduled for phase 2 of her reconstructive surgery in September.

At any given time, Texas Oncology has more than 150 national clinical trials available.

You can see the list of trials that are open for patients here.

Click here to watch the full story.

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