CDER Staff Member Shares Her Experience in a Breast Cancer Clinical Trial

Strother D. Dixon, a senior regulatory project manager in OND’s Division of Dermatology and Dentistry, received a breast cancer diagnosis on Friday, March 13, 2009. Even with a biology background and pharmaceutical industry experience, she felt overwhelmed with information. She soon learned she had triple-negative breast cancer, which can be aggressive and hard to treat.
 
Her oncologist recommended a clinical trial with the biologic Avastin (bevacizumab). She signed up. She remembers reviewing the thick informed consent packet with a colleague. She was overwhelmed, but she felt the trial was her best chance for a successful outcome.
 
The trial had three arms: standard of care, receiving the drug for a short time, or receiving the drug for a year. It was a blinded study, but Strother eventually learned she was in the third arm.
 
She took Avastin for 10 months. Strother had many therapies for her breast cancer, so it is hard to know the role the investigational treatment played. But she believes it helped her, and she hopes her story helps others.
 
“A disproportionate number of African Americans die from triple-negative breast cancer,” Strother says. “I wanted to do something for the people who come behind me.”