Cancer Care Institute – Dr. Youram Nassir MD

A man in a suit and tie, Dr. Youram Nassir looks directly at camera.

Who are we?

Cancer Care Institute provides a full clinical diagnostic and treatment service for any person with any type and stage of cancer. Founded more than two decades ago by lead oncologist and hematologist Dr Youram Nassir, the Cancer Care Institute specializes in providing innovative, tailored, and thoroughly patient-centered cancer care.

Why Come To Us?

No matter where you are in your cancer journey, we can help. We understand cancer is not just about the disease, it’s about you, and how it impacts your health, your life. We are here to empower you, to help you navigate this complex and particularly challenging time.

There is no such thing as a ‘standard’ cancer, and we believe there is no such thing as a standard approach to cancer treatment. With the progress of genomic technologies and molecular profiling techniques, we now have access to a more detailed picture of cancer than ever before. This combined with huge recent advances in molecularly targeted therapies, immunotherapies (which aim to help the body’s immune system fight cancer) and other treatments has together brought enormous benefit in terms of survival and quality of life. At the Cancer Care Institute, we know how to unlock the full potential available in cancer care today. When you come to us, we first build an in-depth and ‘whole-person’ clinical picture of your needs. We can then make sure you have access to the therapeutic options that are right for you.

With particular specialism in complex disease, we are often able to identify more advanced or novel treatment options. We take pride in offering a highly-personalized service, helping you to access just the right clinical trial, or a brand-new targeted therapeutic. As a result, we are fully familiar with the complexities of financing innovative cancer care. We will routinely pursue every avenue required to secure funding for the care our patients need.

“Working alongside outstanding mentors like Dr. Nancy Feldman and Dr. Lauren Kinkbrow showed me what it means to take care of people with very little hope and no insurance. As such, one of my primary goals as a health professional and business owner is to ensure all individuals have access to first-class medical care.”

Dr Youram Nassir

“Oncologists treat several patients with different conditions, allowing me the opportunity to expand my horizons and learn from special cases. Frequent advances in technology and new therapeutics are exciting as they improve our ability to cure patients or help them achieve long-term remission. I once treated a patient with stage-four cancer who developed resistance to chemotherapy. After arranging for her hospice care, I became aware of a new immunotherapy drug that ultimately saved her life.”

Dr Youram Nassir

A coordinated approach to your care

The ever expanding range of cancer therapies and treatments means that making sure our patients receive the best care often requires a coordinated, multi-disciplinary effort. A core aspect of Cancer Care Institute’s success lies in our ability to remain fully independent and patient-centered, yet also maintain effective access to external clinical expertise.

Our independent affiliation with Cedars-Sinai means that we can draw on the exceptional resources of our immediate colleagues, without being limited to standard protocols of one single organization or institution. Our clinic maintains solid professional relationships with a world-wide network of expert diagnostic and treating clinicians, researchers, medical organizations, and health professionals from across the oncology field. In this way, Cancer Care Institute can access the exact experts our patients need, as and when we need them.

“I have had the opportunity to learn from world-class oncologists who have inspired me to be persistent even when faced with the most challenging of cases. Having mentors I can rely on ultimately benefits my patients too, as I can discuss difficult patient cases and enhance treatment methods based on the private counsel I receive.”

Dr Youram Nassir

We’re with you for the long-term

As treatment and diagnosis improves, cancer increasingly requires management as a long-term, chronic condition. We’re committed to staying the course with you, and helping you every step of the journey. We can adapt and tailor your care as therapeutic options, and your own personal needs, evolve and change.

Cancer medicine moves fast and we understand you may want to explore new or different approaches which are not yet regarded as ‘standard’ therapies. This is your journey and we wholly support you to explore new avenues if you wish- we won’t leave you to do this alone. We can advise on health and nutrition and diets, and help you make careful and well informed decisions about other potential therapies. We see this as an essential and important aspect of offering a fully holistic, empowering cancer care service.

The evolving landscape of cancer care

Cancer care is becoming ever more complex and increasingly requires a personalized and flexible approach. Although traditional radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and surgery treatments are still central pillars of cancer therapy, the introduction of new ways to classify disease based on molecular make-up has fueled the rise of personalized cancer medicine. Highly tailored treatment combinations, which can exactly target cancer based on specific gene mutations and proteins are fast becoming more common, and more effective.

“Like people, each tumor is different. The most exciting trend in oncology is being able to offer personalized care to our patients based on the molecular and genetic profile of their cancer. While we have only just scratched the surface, we are getting closer to more efficient and robust genetic tests, which will allow us to treat cancer more effectively and place less emphasis on the cancer’s location in the body.”

Dr Youram Nassir

Researchers and clinicians are continuously working to better stratify cancer types in new and more accurate ways. And this understanding is expanding at an incredible pace. For example, colorectal cancer was recently classified into four major subtypes based on molecular profiling data (Guinney et al., 2015) , while The Cancer Genome Atlas has reported at least seven distinct molecular subtypes of prostate cancer (Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network, 2015) . Attempts to molecularly categorize other less well understood cancer types, such as pancreatic cancer are also ongoing (Collisson et al., 2019) . And further research is also continuously refining and updating our understanding based on other aspects of disease, such as immune-response and epigenetic changes (i.e. factors which affect how genes are expressed) (Menter et al., 2019) . This work is already helping researchers and clinicians understand in greater detail just how newer targeted treatments can help patients.

Accessing targeted therapies

As cancers become better categorized in terms of molecular signature (instead of merely location in the body), the potential for newer targeted therapeutic options is opening up across cancer types.

For example, PARP inhibitors (a type of targeted cancer drug which can block the ability of damaged cancer cells to repair themselves) were originally licensed for use in ovarian and breast cancer tumors with BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations. But we now know that prostate cancer and pancreatic cancer can also carry these and related gene changes, which could make them susceptible to PARP inhibitors. Promising trial data increasingly suggests PARP inhibitors may be effective in for these patients, offering new hope to those with advanced diseases and fewer treatment options (Mateo et al., 2019) . Similarly, CDK4/6 inhibitors, which target proteins called CDK4 and CDK6 in cancer cells, have shown great potency for patients with breast cancer. These drugs also have huge promise for other cancers reliant on CDK4/6 proteins, with good early trial results reported for cancers such as acute myeloid leukemia, non-small-cell lung cancer, and head and neck cancer (Du et al., 2020) .

Immunotherapies, which work to harness the power of the body’s immune system against the tumor or cancer cell are another fast expanding treatment area. Immune checkpoint inhibitors, which target and block proteins normally involved in suppressing the body’s immune response to cancer cells, can help to boost the body’s immune response to cancer. The first immune checkpoint inhibitor, ipilimumab, was originally licensed for use in melanoma skin cancer. The potential of these treatments are enormous, and currently a huge number of trials in a range of different cancers from lung cancer to bladder cancer to renal cell carcinoma are being carried out worldwide (Darvin et al., 2018).

Traditional cancer therapies also continue to improve, as new and more effective methods for delivering radiotherapy and chemotherapy directly to the site of the cancer without harming the surrounding healthy tissue are developed. Advances in the use of tiny nanoparticles to deliver chemotherapy to cancer cells are particularly exciting (Jin et al., 2020) .

Contact Us

A well lit office space with chairs and a check-in desk.

Cancer Care Institute is affiliated with Cedars-Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles. Conveniently and centrally located minutes from the Hospital, our clinic building is easily accessible with onsite valet parking.

Consultation appointments with Dr Nassir are available on referral from your primary care provider, or we also accept self-referrals from patients and family/friends who contact the clinic directly.

The clinic offers consultation appointments with Dr Nassir and his dedicated support team either in-person, or via a fully-remote consultation system. Consultations with nationally- and internationally-based patients are also offered.

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Contact us for more information.
Address: Cancer Care Institute, Suite No. 505, 5901 W Olympic Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036

References

  • Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network (2015). The Molecular Taxonomy of Primary Prostate Cancer. Cell 163, 1011–1025.
  • Collisson, E.A., Bailey, P., Chang, D.K., and Biankin, A.V. (2019). Molecular subtypes of pancreatic cancer. Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology 16, 207–220.
  • Darvin, P., Toor, S.M., Sasidharan Nair, V., and Elkord, E. (2018). Immune checkpoint inhibitors: recent progress and potential biomarkers. Experimental & Molecular Medicine 50, 1–11.
  • Du, Q., Guo, X., Wang, M., Li, Y., Sun, X., and Li, Q. (2020). The application and prospect of CDK4/6 inhibitors in malignant solid tumors. Journal of Hematology & Oncology 13, 41.
  • Guinney, J., Dienstmann, R., Wang, X., de Reyniès, A., Schlicker, A., Soneson, C., Marisa, L., Roepman, P., Nyamundanda, G., Angelino, P., et al. (2015). The consensus molecular subtypes of colorectal cancer. Nature Medicine 21, 1350–1356.
  • Jin, K.-T., Lu, Z.-B., Chen, J.-Y., Liu, Y.-Y., Lan, H.-R., Dong, H.-Y., Yang, F., Zhao, Y.-Y., and Chen, X.-Y. (2020). Recent Trends in Nanocarrier-Based Targeted Chemotherapy: Selective Delivery of Anticancer Drugs for Effective Lung, Colon, Cervical, and Breast Cancer Treatment (Hindawi).
  • Mateo, J., Lord, C.J., Serra, V., Tutt, A., Balmaña, J., Castroviejo-Bermejo, M., Cruz, C., Oaknin, A., Kaye, S.B., and de Bono, J.S. (2019). A decade of clinical development of PARP inhibitors in perspective. Ann Oncol 30, 1437–1447.
  • Menter, D.G., Davis, J.S., Broom, B.M., Overman, M.J., Morris, J., and Kopetz, S. (2019). Back to the Colorectal Cancer Consensus Molecular Subtype Future. Curr Gastroenterol Rep 21, 5.