"It's a miracle": Aussie hospital rolls out cancer treatment
Two years ago, Tony Jiang was told he had advanced, terminal lung cancer. Today, he is fighting fit thanks to a new treatment requiring the pop of just one pill per day.
"It's a miracle. Sometimes I don't feel like I'm a patient," Jiang said.
He reports that this a dramatic turnaround from the day he was diagnosed. Prior to diagnosis he suffered two months of a persistent cough which eventually landed him in hospital.
"They didn't think about cancer because of my age, I never smoked, I had a pretty much healthy lifestyle."
Doctor Vanessa Chin at St Vincent's Hospital Medical Oncologist said Jiang's right lung was filled with fluid.
"By the time I'd met him he already had a tube inserted into that lung to drain off the fluid and a biopsy had been performed," Chin said.
A tissue biopsy of Jiang's lung was sent off for genetic sequencing. Alterations in his cancer cells meant that he was eligible for a subsidised treatment, and no longer needed chemotherapy or radiation.
"Just taking a tablet, one tablet every day and I'm just back to my normal life," Jiang said.
Jiang's doctor Chin said the tumours on his scans virtually disappeared and that he experienced very few side effects.
"When we do scans it's actually hard to tell that he has anything wrong," she said.
New technology now allows pathologists at Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital to test hundreds of genes in one go – a task that just two years ago was impossible.
Anatomical pathologist Dr Tao Yang from St Vincent's Hospital said the technology used can load 24 patient samples at once and deliver results overnight.
Image: Nine News