"This last medication was a gamechanger for me," says Barbara Cortez. "I wouldn’t have had that opportunity if not for Dr. Ziari."
Barbara Cortez was 7 years old when her mother succumbed to breast cancer at age 36.
Cortez told herself that lightning wouldn’t strike twice. But in September 2017, at age 45, she, too, was diagnosed with breast cancer. After four months of chemotherapy to shrink a 5-centimeter tumor in her right breast, she underwent a double mastectomy followed by radiation therapy. By July 2019, the cancer had spread to her bones and liver.
Cortez, now 52, survived that setback and is in remission, thanks to Dr. Mohammadbagher Ziari, director of the UCI Health Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center’s community cancer network.
“Dr. Ziari is an incredible oncologist who is at the top of his game,” she says. “He’s always educating himself on the next thing. He’s always looking to see if there’s another test or therapy to benefit his patients.”
A second opinion
Cortez, a legal assistant then living in the Riverside area, went to Ziari for a second opinion after her oncologist at an Inland Empire medical center said she was unlikely to survive more than five years with the standard-of-care drug for metastatic breast cancer. The drug, palbociclib, works by inhibiting cancer cell growth.
“I decided I didn’t want someone who was treating me like the walking dead,” she recalls.
Ziari, who was working in Corona at the time, told her, “I’m not going to give you any false hope. But there’s another drug that has just been put on the market and we are going to fight for you.”
The medication, olaparib, was designed to block an enzyme that cancer cells need to repair their DNA. It had proven especially effective against ovarian cancer in women with mutations of the BRCA gene. Its use was later expanded to treat metastatic breast cancer patients like Cortez, who also carries the BRCA mutation.
Responding to targeted therapy
Since she began the targeted therapy in early 2020, her tumor markers began to drop from more than 1,000 to below 38, well within normal range. In the last three years, molecular DNA tests and 3D scans have found no evidence of cancer cells.
“It has been a wild journey,” Cortez says. “When I was first diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, all I thought about was that cancer was beating me. Right now, I’m on a good swing.”
The drug does lower a person’s white blood count, which means she must be vigilant around anyone with an infection. Another side effect is water retention. She also takes thyroid medication.
All in all, though, Cortez feels energetic and eager to meet each morning.
Relishing life
She walks about a mile a day with Penny, her English bulldog, takes Pilates classes and participates in activities with her church. “I find myself enjoying the little things more, appreciating my family and the people closest to me.”
Cortez is well aware that her disease could return at any time. But with new targeted therapies coming out all the time, she knows Ziari will continue to fight for her.
“When my mother died in 1979, there was absolutely nothing for her. Now there are people living longer than five years. This last medication was a gamechanger for me. I wouldn’t have had that opportunity if not for Dr. Ziari.”
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