You Can Get There From Here

Sometimes, a cancer patient’s best chance is getting into a clinical trial. But finding the right one can be as hard as finding an IV in a haystack

- Stav Ziv

These trials, which test the safety and efficacy of experimental treatments compared with the standard of care, are not for every patient, because some types of cancer have good treatment options with strong outcomes. Marsilje’s initial search returned 1,200 results. “With my patient hat on, I had no idea where you’d start. I assure you, there are not 1,200 clinical trials [worth considering],” Marsilje says. “One of the first things I realized was that I was really lucky in my background. I don’t know how anyone without a scientific background would be able to do this. It’s so complicated.”

Marsilje—who took care of his mother before she passed away from pancreatic cancer and watched other family members fight cancer—studied medicinal chemistry and became an oncology and drug discovery researcher at Novartis, working primarily on lung cancer. He helped design a lung cancer drug. In June 2012, his colleagues presented their Phase I clinical trial data at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. “It really had felt like we struck a blow to cancer,” Marsilje says. Six hours later, cancer struck back. The 40-year-old Marsilje had a colonoscopy and got a diagnosis of Stage III colorectal cancer (CRC). He had surgery two days later. The cancer caretaker turned cancer researcher was suddenly a cancer patient. A short time later, he also became a cancer activist, taking on the daunting challenge many patients face of finding a clinical trial that offers real hope.