Cancer Drug Sensitivity Testing

ABOUT 50% OF ALL INITIAL CANCER TREATMENTS FAIL

START YOUR FIGHT AGAINST CANCER WITH THE RIGHT TREATMENT

THE FIRST TIME

In cancer care, time is everything. Yet for many people, the first treatment tried doesn’t deliver the result they hoped for—leaving precious weeks or months behind. Across many cancers, response rates to first-line drugs are often well below 50%, which means a large share of patients don’t benefit from the initial therapy and must pivot later. Meanwhile, the disease keeps moving.

A Smarter, Faster Path –  Functional Drug Effectiveness Testing on YOUR Tumor

There is now a quick lab test that helps you and your doctor see which treatments are most likely to work on your unique tumor—before you commit to a full course of therapy. In collaboration with a CLIA-certified laboratory at the University of Washington, your living tumor cells are tested ex vivo (outside the body) against a broad panel of FDA-approved medications and select combinations that kill cancer cells. The lab measures which drugs most effectively kill your cancer cells, producing a ranked report your oncologist can use to tailor your plan. Results are available quickly—often about a week after the lab receives your sample—so you can move decisively.

Why this matters: Choosing an ineffective first-line therapy can waste critical time. Testing your tumor up front can help your care team start with the treatment that shows the strongest direct kill of your cancer cells, rather than guessing based only on population averages.

How Drug Effectiveness Testing Works

  • Collect & cryopreserve tissue
    During surgery or biopsy, a small portion of viable tumor tissue or aspirate fluid is set aside and cryopreserved (safely frozen) to keep the cells alive.

  • Lab testing on living tumor cells
    Your sample is shipped to a CLIA-certified University of Washington laboratory. Using high-throughput methods, your cells are exposed to hundreds of clinically relevant, FDA-approved cancer drugs and combinations. The test directly measures cell-killing activity and identifies top performers for your tumor. Stem Cell Institute

  • Actionable report to your oncologist
    The lab returns a ranked report highlighting the most effective options for your tumor, which your oncologist can use—alongside pathology, imaging, and genomics—to craft a first-line plan with higher odds of success. Functional testing like this is a core pillar of “functional precision medicine,” which has shown promise in multiple cancers.

 

Why Do this BEFORE Starting Treatment?

  • Win back time. If the first therapy fails, you’ve lost valuable weeks or months. Functional effectiveness testing helps you start strong and stay strong.

  • Personal, not generic. Your tumor’s behavior—not just its category or mutations—guides the choice. Some patients without a “matching” mutation still respond to certain drugs, and some with a mutation won’t. Functional testing captures this real-world biology and directs your treatment far more accurately.

  • Rapid turnaround. A fast, lab-driven answer (often ~1 week post-receipt) helps you make decisions quickly.  There’s no need to delay treatment – just the need to get it right the first time.

  • Combination insight. Testing can reveal potent combinations that outperform single drugs for your cells.  Testing your biopsy tissue against up to 300 FDA approved treatments provides insights that can direct much more effective treatment regimen’s.

 

The Case for CRYOPRESERVING Tumor Tissue (do this as early as possible)

Banking living tumor tissue unlocks options today and tomorrow:

  • Enables immediate drug testing. Cryopreservation keeps cells viable so they can be revived for ex vivo testing when you and your doctor are ready. Nature

  • Future-proofs your care. As new drugs appear, your banked tissue can be retested, and organoids/3D models can be developed from frozen tissue that still mirrors your cancer—supporting future decision-making. ScienceDirect

  • Opens doors to clinical trials. Many advanced studies now use functional testing and living biobanks to match patients to the most promising investigational therapies. PMC

  • Supports deeper science. Banked tissue can be used for genomic and multi-omics analyses later, without another invasive procedure. PMC

Bottom line: Cryopreserve whenever possible. It preserves options, accelerates decisions, and could be the difference between a delay and the right treatment—right now.

Who is DRUG EFFECTIVENESS TESTING for?

  • Newly diagnosed patients preparing for first-line therapy

  • Patients whose disease has unique features or limited targeted options

  • Anyone seeking a data-driven, personalized treatment plan from the outset

(Your treating physician remains in charge of your care. This test provides decision support to help select the most promising FDA-approved therapies for you.)

What YOU can expect

  • Sample: A small portion of your surgical tissue, biopsy tissue or aspirate will be cryopreserved for live tissue testing. (your care team can coordinate this).

  • Logistics: Samples are shipped cold and processed promptly at the University of Washington lab.  Samples are tested against multiple FDA approved treatments to determine which will be most effective for YOUR unique tumor type.

  • Turnaround: Results typically return within ~1 week of lab receipt. Your oncologist reviews the report with you and decides next steps based on the treatment effectiveness profile that is returned.

 

Make Your First Treatment the Right Treatment

This could be the most important medical decision of your life. If you or a loved one is facing cancer, ask us about tumor cryopreservation and functional drug sensitivity testing before starting therapy.

  • Call: (833) – 933-0601

  • Email: info@specicare.com

  • We’ll coordinate with your oncology team to preserve tissue and arrange testing with our University of Washington laboratory partner.