About Vanguard...
The Vanguard Mission:
“Empower cancer patients – through education, awareness and financial assistance – so that they may make their fight against cancer personal and conquer their disease.”
Who We Are
Vanguard Cancer Foundation is a nonprofit, volunteer organization advocating for more personalized and intelligent cancer care. The organization was formed in 1994 by Loretta Phillips Stamos after she witnessed the value of personalized, assay directed cancer treatment first hand as her brother battled lung cancer. Assay-directed cancer therapy is a rational approach to cancer treatment that is guided by an individual’s tumor response to various chemotherapeutics.
What We Believe
- We believe that every person is unique, and every person’s cancer is similarly unique.
- We believe that informed decisions in selecting a treatment will help improve outcomes, eliminate drug therapies least likely to be effective and maximize precious time to fight cancer.
- We believe that cancer therapy should be customized for each patient based on their specific cancer.
What We Do
- Educate patients and the public about personalized care for cancer treatment that is currently available.
- Provide cancer patients in financial need the opportunity to receive vital treatment information that will enable them to fight and perhaps overcome their illness.
- Further the progress of specific cancer research projects that support, validate and advance the assay directed cancer therapy approach for selecting a chemotherapeutic treatment for each patient.