Trail for the Future

Patty Skorey-Solberg, RN, CCRP, has been at the June E. Nylen Cancer Center for over 16 years and finds her work to be extremely rewarding. But she longs for the day when she’ll be told she’s lost her job – when a cure for cancer has finally been discovered.

A breast cancer survivor of over 22 years, Patty knows cancer personally, which makes her work in the Clinic Research Department at the June E. Nylen Cancer Center (JENCC) important, and real. Advances in breast cancer treatments, (like the HER2 gene discovery), happened because of clinical trials and research, which ultimately led to the development of immunotherapy.

“That quite literally changed the face of cancer treatment,” Patty explains.Clinical trials are a mechanism of the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA). New drugs move from animal testing to human testing through community studies. The FDA “typically requires proof of safety and effectiveness of a new anticancer drug in a large clinical trial before it can be used broadly in patient care.”

Learn more about clinical trials and research at JENCC in this recent article in Siouxland Woman Magazine.