Patients LaToya Johnson Area of Research: Skin Cancer Breast Cancer LaToya’s Story Initially misdiagnosed, then diagnosed with stage 3C triple-negative invasive ductal carcinoma breast cancer, LaToya Bolds-Johnson, PA-C, CAQ-EM, was not offered immunotherapy as a treatment option. After conducting her own research and attending a virtual oncology summit, LaToya advocated to be enrolled in an immunotherapy trial. “I’m in the medical field, so I’m actively researching different treatment regimens,” she shares, “but what about people who don’t have a medical background, and they’re not even being offered or told about these immunotherapies that are shown to improve your prognosis!” “If you see something, say something. If you feel something, say something,” she emphasizes! “Even though the person in front of you may have all of these credentials, at the end of the day, you know when your body isn’t feeling right.” Working with a new oncologist, LaToya enrolled in the PERSEVERE trial. “I felt really no side effects,” LaToya shares. “The clinical trial was the easiest part of my 20 months of cancer treatments, which I just completed two months ago.” “The reason why I wanted to be enrolled in clinical trials is because I understood the impact of African-Americans only representing 3% of clinical trials. I wanted to increase the number, and I also wanted my biology and my body to be studied because I have three young daughters,” she says. “It was building a medical trust fund for my children. I want to help contribute to clinical research so that they may not ever have to face this very ugly type of cancer.”
