There are still plenty of benefits to a clinical trial, even if it does not work out directly for the patient involved. Selena Avalos is proof of that.

In 2019, the day before Avalos was about to start her senior year at Lynn High School in Winston County, Ala., she was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma. Within days, Avalos and her mother met with UAB Medicine pediatric hematologist-oncologist Julie Wolfson, M.D., MSHS, to discuss the various treatment options available, including a clinical trial that was being offered through the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center.

I told my mom that I wanted to do the trial, because that’s how you find out what works best for people

Selena Avalos

“I told my mom that I wanted to do the trial, because that’s how you find out what works best for people,” Avalos said.

Dr. Wolfson says the new medication was aimed more at reducing the side effects from traditional chemotherapy rather than improving the treatment outcome.

“Hodgkin lymphoma in general is one of the cancers that we have very good success in treating,” Dr. Wolfson said. “The medication that had traditionally been used is one of the oldest and most effective drugs we’ve had for something like this. But we’ve always wanted to figure out how to replace it, because it had some significant side effects.”

Unfortunately, Avalos experienced a negative reaction to her initial treatment with the new therapy. Her stomach tightened almost immediately after receiving the drug, and she began having trouble breathing. “It happened really fast,” she recalled.

So, Avalos was taken off the experimental drug and instead went through regular chemotherapy. She was able to enjoy a relatively normal senior year of high school. “After just my first few treatments, a lot of my cancer was already gone,” Avalos said. “Dr. Wolfson and the radiologist couldn’t believe how quickly it was working.”

Although Avalos ended up receiving traditional chemotherapy treatment, she remained part of the trial, and Dr. Wolfson says there was still significant value in following her progress.

“She was on study but off protocol therapy,” Dr. Wolfson said. “Basically, this means we’re following the patient and she’s still contributing data, but we’re not using that study’s treatment anymore. But we’re still comparing the standard treatment to the newer treatment.”

Ultimately, the study was published in The New England Journal of Medicine. “Everybody who participated in this study helped advance the standard of care,” Dr. Wolfson said. “The older medicine is no longer standard. It is now standard to give this new targeted medicine. And every patient who participated in that study made that possible.”

Avalos quicky went into remission without using the new treatment, yet she has no regrets about going through the clinical trial process. “I’m still glad I tried it,” Avalos said. “If it wasn’t for people who are willing to take that step and see what happens, the doctors wouldn’t know the best route to go.”