THE ACCRESCENT™ PODCAST EPISODE 232

Leigh Ann Lindsey (00:01.279)
Well, Dr. Shukla, welcome to the Accrescent Podcast.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (00:05.209)
Thank you so much for having me.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (00:07.209)
I’m so excited to have you on. We were already talking off air that the work you’re doing is so aligned with my audience, the clients I’m working with on a regular basis. But I do always like to start with a little bit of an intro. That way the audience can get to know you a bit better as well on a personal level before we dive into all the science and all the things that are to come. So what I’d love to just start with is…

how did you get to cancer? Was that always in your mind as you were pursuing your medical degree?

Vershalee Shukla, MD (00:37.77)
Absolutely not. so my best friend in college ended up getting Hodgkin’s lymphoma. So we were at orientation and she actually felt a lump in her neck. And so I actually got to see her go through radiation treatments and chemotherapy. And, you know, when I first started medical school, because taking care of cancer patients is so emotionally draining, it was one of those things that I thought maybe I shouldn’t do this, but she truly inspired me.

And by the end of medical school, I really realized I wanted to take care of cancer patients, particularly young cancer patients.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (01:14.645)
I love that we all kind of have our own journey. actually didn’t share this with you off air, but I got into the work I’m doing because in 2020 at 25, I was diagnosed with stage zero breast cancer.

So that’s kind of how I got into all of this too. And the integrative cancer center I was going to has all of their patients do this deep emotional work, which was so life-changing for me and ultimately led me to the path that I am today. So I think when you end up in cancer, it’s because there’s been some personal experience with it.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (01:48.59)
100 % I agree.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (01:50.355)
So we’re going to get into some really exciting early detection technologies that exist that you’re using in your center. What I want to start with though is helping us understand why this is so important. What a difference it can make to treatment outcomes when we’re catching cancer so much earlier. And so can you give us, I know it’s also very unique and different to each patient, but can you give us an idea of what cancer treatment might look like stage

0 stage 1 versus what it might look like stage 3 or 4.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (02:25.28)
Absolutely. So again, it’s dependent on the person and dependent on the type of cancer. But with stage one, often people just need surgery and they can go back to work and be followed very carefully. If you’re stage three or stage four, chances are you’re going to need radiation, chemotherapy, potentially surgery, maybe immunotherapy, and this could be lifelong. And so there’s just so much more treatment, so much more toxicity from that treatment.

And then the prognosis is also very poor. And so stage one, stage two are 90 % cure rates. And so it makes a huge difference. And a lot of these cancers that don’t present with any symptoms, like pancreatic cancer, it’s often caught too late before we can do anything. And that’s almost a death sentence. And so screening for cancer is so important.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (03:17.743)
Mm-hmm. You already kind of led me into this next question, which is, the patients coming in and getting screened, how many of them have active symptoms that end up having cancer?

Vershalee Shukla, MD (03:28.046)
So most of my patients that come through are healthy and well and have no symptoms. And that’s when I want to detect cancer before it’s causing a problem. And so in my cancer screening program, approximately 90 % of the cancers are caught at stage one or stage two. I do see the odd patient who comes in with feeling something in their neck or not feeling well. But majority of the patients are coming in for routine screening.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (03:55.623)
Yeah. Now, speaking to-

It seems like cancer is showing up for clients or patients younger and younger. And so we have, I think we’ve been fed for a long time, these general like once you’re 40, time to get a mammogram. Once you’re this age, time to get a prostate exam. But it seems like a lot of those old timelines don’t apply anymore. And so for you, what is the ideal? When should people be coming in for screening? And we’re going to get into the different types of screening and how that might be different, how things might have changed a lot.

but what does this look like? Especially if they’re having no symptoms, it’s sort of a kind of, it feels like the wild, wild west of, then how do I know when it’s time to come in?

Vershalee Shukla, MD (04:39.968)
Right. Again, I think it’s based on your risk. And so I screen a lot of firefighters and police officers, but they’re at very high risk from their job, the toxins, the lack of sleep, the stress. And so they’re very high risk. I think there’s people with genetic, with BRCA mutations, Tecte mutations, those are very, very high risk patients. Sometimes you just have a family history with no mutations and those are also high risk patients. And so it’s very personal, but I think

people should start screening early, especially if it’s safe. If there’s no radiation, there’s no contrast and the exam is safe and you have a good doctor who can follow you, then there’s really no reason not to be screened, right? And so we do a lot of whole body MRIs, we do QT ultrasounds, we do blood tests, but I follow my patients. And so if we find additional findings, I make sure that that does not turn out to be cancer.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (05:36.891)
Mm-hmm. And so getting screened earlier, what does that look like roughly? Is that like, hey, we might want to start thinking about this in our 20s now or our 30s now if there’s a high risk element.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (05:51.292)
Absolutely. So I start, most of my firefighters, they actually start 30, some of them even younger. And so at 35, we’re doing colonoscopies for these people. For my female firefighters, I’m doing QT ultrasounds at the age of 30 because they’re just getting cancer so much, so much higher and at much younger rates. But I think also the general population, a lot of people are exposed to PFAS, endocrine disruptors, they’re

everybody’s getting it and so you have to be mindful.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (06:23.729)
Right. Well, to that end, despite a lot of things changing for the better, cancer rates have only gone up. I think it’s one in two now will develop cancer in a lifetime. even that number alone tells us it behooves me to get early screening, especially if that early screening is radiation free and ultimately non-toxic and fairly non-invasive.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (06:34.12)
Absolutely.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (06:52.19)
Absolutely. So of all the cancers we’re catching by screening, it’s only 14%. So there’s a huge opportunity to catch so many more cancers and catch them early. And that’s why this field is exploding with new blood tests, new imaging. All sorts of things are up and coming. so hopefully, five, 10 years from now, it’s very different. But right now, yes, a lot of young people are getting cancer and very limited screening options are available.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (07:21.297)
Yeah, and I want to just lean in on something you said earlier, which is…

I think you said 90 % of your patients are coming in no symptoms, healthy, fit, eating well. But you made such a great point, which is if there’s cancer, that’s when we want to catch it because it means it’s not starting to deteriorate all these systems in the body. There’s cancer, but it hasn’t really taken root to a point where these other systems are starting to break down, shut down, which means your body, whatever treatment might be necessary, your body

is going to be able to handle that, respond to that, recover from that so much better.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (08:00.401)
Absolutely.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (08:02.867)
So let’s get into, there’s three really specific early screening methods you’re using over at your center that I wanna get into. The QT ultrasound, we’re gonna talk about some blood tests and then we’re gonna talk about AI for early screening, early detection. But let’s start with the QT ultrasound. And in fact, you know what might be helpful is we start with.

In conventional oncology, what does early screening look like? And then how is what you’re doing here different or going the extra mile?

Vershalee Shukla, MD (08:36.235)
So for breast cancer screening, means doing a mammogram starting at the age of 40. The problem with lowering the age on mammograms is the younger you are, the more dense your breasts are because there’s more estrogen in your body. And so mammograms, it looks like you’re looking at a cloud. You can’t really see through it. so there’s, you know, it’s unfortunately the younger people were missing cancer because we don’t have effective screening. Also women who have implants.

It’s not as easy to see and there’s now, you know, regulations that regulate that, you know, mammograms are not that effective in women with dense breasts. And so even though we see younger cancer, we just don’t have an effective way to screen them. And so often those women can go on to get a conventional ultrasound. So QT ultrasound came into my life in 2019. John Clark is the founder and he’s a medical oncologist and he believed that we needed to have

better screening for younger women and women with dense breasts. And so this ultrasound is different. Women lay on their stomach, their breast goes in water, and the image that it produces is 40 times the resolution of an MRI. So something that, so you can see little, little tiny specks. And the beauty of being able to see tiny specks of cancer is you can follow it until it.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (09:51.445)
Wow.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (10:02.186)
and it actually manifests itself. And so you don’t have to jump to biopsy and you can wait and watch it grow. This is safe to do so you can do it every three months if you have something suspicious and you want to follow it before jumping to biopsy. And so, and it’s comfortable and there’s no radiation and there’s no contrast. And so it’s exciting technology. It’s becoming more and more available as Canon has taken over. And so hopefully this technology will be

available to women all over the U.S.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (10:33.878)
So let’s hone in on a couple parts of this a little more specifically. One is even if women were doing mammograms earlier, because sometimes that breast tissue is more dense, mammograms are only like 50 % accurate.

So even if they’re doing more, even if they’re doing it earlier, it still might not be catching something that’s growing, especially if it’s really, really small. But then another layer to consider here is the more mammograms we’re doing, if we’re starting younger, the more radiation we’re exposing ourselves to over a much longer period of time, which starts to get concerning if it’s something we’re doing regularly. The other part I want to go to though, is this is really interesting. So the QT ultrasound is even more

precise than even something like an MRI.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (11:24.943)
Absolutely. So it can go ahead.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (11:26.6)
So I, because I’m so young, my surgeon has me do yearly MRIs, which is great. I’ve sort of rejected the mammograms, plus I have really small dense breasts anyways, but.

So she was like, plus you’re too young. We don’t want to be getting you that much radiation, that young. That’s too much of an accumulation over your lifetime. But the interesting thing is I’m actually allergic to the MRI dye contrast. I have really horrible reactions. So they always have to put me on some medications before I do it. And then I feel awful for a couple of days after. And so you don’t have to do any of that contrast. You don’t have to inject anything.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (12:08.945)
No, no compression. So lot of my cancer patients, their breasts hurt after radiation surgery and to get a mammogram pushing on them, it hurts. And so this is, it’s pain free, it’s safe and it’s very effective.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (12:25.238)
And then is it only for breast cancer?

Vershalee Shukla, MD (12:28.708)
Right now it’s only for breast cancer. They have done some full body imaging with it, some joint imaging with it, but right now the FDA indication is for breast.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (12:39.37)
Okay. And so what does this look like? How are you using this in your practice? Are you having clients coming in or patients coming in saying, you know, I already did all of this imagery, but I want to go the extra mile and do QT or are we able to skip MAMO, skip MRIs and jump straight to the QT ultrasound?

Vershalee Shukla, MD (13:00.947)
So I always tell my patients, you know, the more things you do, the more likelihood or the higher likelihood we’re going to have of catching cancer. So no modality is perfect. And so some women are very, don’t want to do radiation. They are against it. And so I think this is a very reasonable option for them. It’s very safe. It’s comfortable. You can see a lot. You can be followed very closely. Some women,

I’ve had surgery biopsies and so this is where I say do the mammogram, do the QT, do the ultrasound. Some women even do the MRI just depending on what’s all happened to them. I think if they’re just average risk and they want to do the QT and then wait because QT is not covered by insurance and then do a regular ultrasound or a regular mammogram in between, know, some women do that, staggering it. So it’s very, it’s a very personal thing.

I try to respect my patients wishes and go from there.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (14:03.88)
Yeah. And what difference have you noticed it make on your end, on the practitioner end of it using this different imaging? How is that adding to your practice beyond kind of like the comfort of the patient?

Vershalee Shukla, MD (14:19.27)
Well, I think it’s a huge sigh of relief because a lot of women will go and have a, they’ll have something on mammogram and then they’re recommended for biopsy and they come and I’ll do a QT on them and I’ll say, I can easily see this. It doesn’t look that worrisome for me. Let’s just follow it and we follow it and it doesn’t change. And so then they’ve avoided a biopsy or there’s a lot of young women who are high risk and they want to be followed and this is something I can do for them. So.

It’s definitely added a lot of comfort, emotionally, the mental part of it for women. And so I think it’s great.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (14:55.976)
Yeah, I love that. I’m even just thinking back to my experience, is everything about my tumor looked very concerning. So even just in the ultrasound imaging we did and the mammogram image, everything looked really concerning, but they still wanted to do the biopsy. And then ultimately I ended up having a lumpectomy, but there’s even a part of me that’s like, could I have just foregone?

the biopsy and just gone straight to the lumpectomy? Why do we need to have like two procedures, two invasive things happening? And if there’s even clearer imaging that goes, look, this looks really suspicious. Why even play around with it? Let’s just remove this.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (15:36.505)
Absolutely, but there’s a lot of women who fall into that gray area where they undergo biopsies and it comes back negative and it causes that person a significant amount of stress, physical trauma, and so having a QT where you can see it and follow it and can avoid a biopsy is very, it’s something that’s very beneficial for women.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (15:57.844)
Yeah, I think that’s huge, especially over here in the like integrative alternative medicine world. It’s, you know, every time we cut into the body, that’s an injury that needs to be recovered from. And there’s a time and a place. Absolutely. And also though, like when we’re, if it is cancerous and we’re cutting into cancerous tissue, what is that doing? Is that sort of breaking through the encapsulation that the body’s created on it? So there is trepidation of

cutting into cancer and wanting to do that as little as possible.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (16:32.378)
Yeah, and so this technology will allow you to do that.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (16:38.206)
I love it. Okay, so let’s move on to the blood testing you’re doing in kind of doing some research for today’s conversation. It sounds like there’s maybe a number of different blood tests, liquid biopsies and companies that you’ve worked with. So I want to get an updated look at this. Are you still using multiple companies? If so, which one or have you kind of refined that a bit more?

Vershalee Shukla, MD (17:01.101)
Yes, so I use multiple companies. And the reason why I use multiple companies is majority of these tests were designed on biobanks, which are old and bank samples of cancer patients that are from like five, 10 years ago when most of those patients were above 50, above 60, above 70. And so it’s not really relevant to my population who

are the average age in my group is 37 or 38 getting cancer. And so a young person’s cancer, a toxin cancer, environmental cancer looks different than a 70 year old person with a cancer. And so I have to kind of utilize all the different technologies out there to kind of figure out what’s the best for my patient. And so I started my journey in the early detection liquid biopsy with a company called

grail in the test was called gallery, which looked at something called DNA methylation. So DNA methylation is, you know, sheds, cancer sheds that in the blood. But the older you are, the more you shed and it’s easier to be detected. And so what was happening in my population is I’d have a 36 year old with a cancer, same stage as a 54 year old, it pick up the cancer in the 54 year old, but it missed the cancer in the 34 year old. It’s just because of age. And so

it ended up missing a lot of cancers in my population just because it wasn’t well suited. breast cancer is not one of the cancers that sheds in the blood and so it didn’t pick up breast cancer, it didn’t pick up prostate cancer, which are common cancers, but those cancers don’t shed in the blood. And so we spent some more time looking at different ones. The current one I’m using is called ExactSciences.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (18:35.22)
I’m not.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (18:53.166)
cancer guard and this is looking specifically for five of the more deadly cancers, lung cancer, esophageal cancer, pancreatic cancer, ovarian cancer, stomach cancer. And so those are, so this assay just, you know, and those are cancers that shed in the blood. Now this is, the mechanism is very similar. It’s like grail, but it also looks at proteins and proteins may be shed a little bit earlier than the DNA methylation in cancer. And so perhaps

This test can pick up cancer earlier. I’ve done about a thousand, so we still have to wait and see. Some other tests that are exciting that I’m working on, there is a company out of England called Proteotype, and this is very different. It looks at your immune changes, what happens when you develop cancer. And so your body obviously senses something foreign in your body and there’s different immune changes. And so it’s looking to study that. And so again, we’re very early to this.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (19:49.75)
Hmm.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (19:51.641)
We’ve only done it with biobank samples. so every cancer patient or every patient that comes into my clinic, I biobank their blood and urine. And, you know, we keep doing this year after year and so that I can detect cancer at the earliest stages. And so I send these samples out to different companies and they get to, I get to see how well they perform. We’ve worked with a company out of TGen, City of Hope, and they’re looking at fragmentomics, which is a different

Leigh Ann Lindsey (20:12.883)
Yeah.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (20:20.97)
area and something different that cancer spreads. And so that’s a new test that will probably be released later this year. And so and then something I’m really excited about is a company called Cyantra out of Canada. And we’ve in partnership with Cornell and Columbia, we’ve launched the largest study on women and we’re going to follow 2000 women of all different backgrounds from the ages of 30 to 70 to look at different auto antibodies in their blood to predict.

cancer and cancer early. so having something like that increases accessibility to breast cancer screening for women who can’t go and get a mammogram. Some cultures don’t let you take off your shirt and go get a mammogram. Some people are afraid. Some people live in a rural setting where they don’t have access to mammograms. so this, if this once, and hopefully this test performs very well, but this could be a game changer.

improving accessibility and detecting cancer early. So we’re very, very excited about that one.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (21:23.95)
my gosh, this is, I’m getting really excited about this because to your point, first of all, just the ease, right? This is the difference between taking a vial or a couple vials of blood, which you can do in so many different places in so many different locations versus.

needing to go in and do a mammogram, do an ultrasound, do an MRI, it’s much more invasive, all the things. But I want to break down each of these different tests. are you using all of these tests for all patients where it’s just like, taking your blood, we’re sending it to all of them to get this huge scope, or is it, here’s what we’re concerned you’re at risk for, so we’re going to send it to this very specific one?

Vershalee Shukla, MD (21:50.787)
Yes.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (22:05.571)
So this is how I’m kind of doing my approach. I’m not using Galleri that much anymore because of my younger population. There are some patients who I feel like, who are older, who are high risk for pancreatic, things like that, where I feel that they’re well suited for grail. I’m using, I like using Cancer Guard in conjunction with the whole body MRI because I feel like they complement each other, where the whole body MRI picks up kidney cancers and…

the more indolent cancers that I can kind of see growing and Cancer Guard kind of picks up the more aggressive cancers. So that’s kind of how I’m mixing it right now. The other prototype and the other tests that I’m doing, I’m doing those more as research trying to understand how they perform with my biobank and prospectively as well.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (22:50.742)
Mm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (22:54.398)
Okay, and then I want to break down what each of these tests is looking at, because this is, I know my audience will eat this up. They actually really want these details. So, gallery, I know you’re not using it that much anymore, but what they’re measuring is you’re saying cancer cells or cancer tumors. Okay.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (23:11.203)
Yes, so DNA methylation. So the tumor sheds this very early and they can pick it up in very small amounts.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (23:16.725)
right.

Okay, so but it’s very specifically that a cancer tumor, not just a lone cell, the cancer tumor is shedding this DNA methylation that can be detected in a blood test. And then with the cancer guard, is that the one that they’re picking up on proteins?

Vershalee Shukla, MD (23:25.228)
Right.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (23:29.1)
Yes.

Yes.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (23:38.752)
Yes, so they’re doing both DNA methylation and proteins.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (23:42.58)
Okay, and is it different cancers are shedding different types of methylation, DNA methylation, different types of proteins, and that’s what helps them really zero in on what’s going on?

Vershalee Shukla, MD (23:53.62)
Yes, so this is where Grail kind of wins because Grail will not only tell you, you know, this is where you’re shedding the DNA, but I can tell you the signal of origin where with Cancer Guard, they’re just picking up DNA methylation. We picked up DNA methylation. Chances are it’s probably one of these five most aggressive cancers, but you have to go look. It doesn’t tell you where it’s picking it up.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (24:20.608)
Got it. Okay.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (24:22.645)
So yes, they advertise that they’re only looking for the five most aggressive cancers, but I picked up a gentleman who had a very aggressive lymphoma in the chest, which is not one of the cancers that they mentioned. you know, so that’s a little bit trickier with Cancer Guard. It doesn’t tell you where the signal is coming from.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (24:42.832)
Yeah, how is Grail able to get that data? Is it that the DNA methylation being off put is different for each cancer type or?

Vershalee Shukla, MD (24:51.97)
Yeah, they have sequencers that can, you know, predict the likelihood and they have algorithms. And GRAIL was one of the original and a lot of data and thought has gone into that test. you know, it’s definitely, I mean, it tests for 50 different cancers. It’s good in its population, right? And so, and it’s only going to get better. They’ve now tested almost 300,000 patients. And so,

Leigh Ann Lindsey (25:07.446)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (25:15.06)
Mm-hmm.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (25:22.099)
you know, it’s version one, version two, as they, you know, the computers and everyone learns more and more, these tests are going to become better and better.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (25:30.854)
Yeah, completely. It’s making me think, have you heard of RGCC or like Signatera? Okay. Yeah, I would love a compare and contrast because a lot of the patients I work with are doing one of those too.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (25:39.007)
Yes, so that’s a little bit different.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (25:47.521)
So, Cygneterra is something called MRD or minimal residual disease or molecular residual disease. And so, what it does is when you have cancer and you have it removed, it takes some of that tissue and it takes some blood and it makes a personal assay identifying that tumor’s DNA in your blood. And then every couple months you go back and you have that test to look for that DNA in the blood. So, Neterra was the first and it’s

Leigh Ann Lindsey (26:14.432)
Okay.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (26:17.217)
probably the largest and it’s got FDA clearance and it’s on Medicare. But a lot of those tests are very good at picking up metastatic disease. We’re looking for something, if you want to pick up, catch a recurrence so early, you want to pick it up, you want something that picks it up in your breast before it’s gone anywhere else. And so there’s a bunch of new ones coming out. Tempest has one that came out of Stanford called Personalis.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (26:38.41)
completely.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (26:46.272)
And that’s a very good one. There’s a new one from Sega Diagnostics, which looks at structural variance and their claim to picking up a local or early recurrence is very, very sensitive. And so this area again is very exploding. So bottom line though is they can pick up a recurrence before you can see it on imaging. so potentially somebody whose cancer has come back can be cured.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (27:07.583)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (27:12.958)
Yeah. Okay, so signetara is more about once there is already a cancerous tumor, they’re testing, once it’s been removed, they’re taking that tissue, mapping out the DNA of that, and then just, it’s a test to see has this DNA returned. Okay, so that’s less about early screening for original cancer and more about screening for recurrence.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (27:28.295)
Exactly, yes.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (27:33.237)
Yes.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (27:37.589)
Right.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (27:38.174)
Okay. And then can you talk to me a little bit about RGCC? This is the one I’m most familiar with because I actually did this. And as far as I understand it, they’re looking at cancer cells and cancer tumor markers, but then they’re also testing your cells. And now this is getting into treatment, but they’re testing your specific cells against all of these different immunotherapies, chemo’s, radiation, substances, et cetera, to see which ones basically attack your cancer the best.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (28:08.264)
Right, so this is the Greek test, right? Is this the Greek test? Yeah, so I have never used this test. I’ve met with the company a few times. It’s just, know, it’s the specimens are not, it’s hard to send, they have to go over. And so it wasn’t that I didn’t like it. It’s just that, you know, I have a lot of available technology right, you know, right around me. And so

Leigh Ann Lindsey (28:08.438)
Okay. Yeah. huh.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (28:28.01)
Yeah.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (28:36.809)
But I have patients have used it and it does, but there’s other tests like CARIS molecular profiling and all different tests that can actually, they sequence your tumor and tell you if you respond to immunotherapy, if this tumor responds to this type, if it’s gonna respond to be hormonally sensitive, all sorts. There’s onco-type, there’s mammoprintin, so there’s a lot of different tests in this area.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (28:59.819)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (29:04.562)
Yeah, I think it’s so fun to do a compare and contrast and it’s not even necessarily like this is the best because I think the reality of that answer is this is the best one for you at this time in your life with what’s going on. Not necessarily this is the best one for everyone everywhere at all times and that’s where the nuance and why working with a doctor is so important because they can really guide you of there are so many tests. We don’t need to spend your money on all of them. These are the ones that are going to be best for you.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (29:34.364)
Absolutely.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (29:35.912)
Tell me a little bit more. there was Grail, Cancer Guard, and then Prototype, and there was one more one that you mentioned. And now those two, you’re still kind of researching to see it sounds like you want to really integrate them into your practice. But can we go into those a little bit more?

Vershalee Shukla, MD (29:46.056)
Yeah.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (29:51.849)
Yeah, so prototype is a test that looks at the different amino acids on different proteins or, you know, immunoglobulins in your body trying to predict cancer. And so this kind of is interesting because it’s not looking for DNA being shedded. It’s a whole different mechanism. So potentially it has the opportunity to pick up cancer early. And so, you know, it’s

It’s got a panel of eight to 10 cancers. And so we’ll see how it does. And there’s also a new test that I could kind of tell you about is called Garden Shield. And so anyone 45 or above, this is a test for colorectal cancer. And first stage to pick up colorectal cancer, it’s just around a sensitivity of 85 to 90%. But the cool thing is, is if you do the colorectal testing,

you can get their multi-cancer early detection test for free. So you can now get a early detection cancer for free on insurance. So anyone above the age of 45, check with your insurance plan. Medicare is 100 % covered, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona just started to cover that, which is something nice because all of these technologies, Grail is $900, Cancer Guard is…

you know, seven, six hundred, seven hundred dollars. So they’re all expensive where this test is covered by insurance. And so it’s something nice to do again. So that looks at something called circulating tumor DNA, which is, you know, kind of similar, but still, you know, it’s better than nothing. And so, yeah. And so, and then, you know, I’m looking at a bunch of smaller other companies trying to figure out, you know, who’s probably the best.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (31:43.006)
Yeah. Who stands out? What, you know, the methods they’re using, what I love that you, think for the audience to really understand this, what you mentioned that you keep a bank of blood and urine samples. and so you’re sending these out to them. You already know that there’s cancer in these bloods or there should be. And so it’s a great way to test these companies to see if they’re picking up on this.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (32:07.514)
Exactly, exactly. So then I can see who performs well in my population.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (32:13.288)
Yeah, in a conversation you had that I was listening to in research, you were saying, I think you even sent them out, you sent 10 non-cancerous blood samples and 10 like cancerous, and you didn’t tell them what was what, because you wanted to be able to see how good are they, how accurate are they. I love that, but that you’re doing this, you you’re taking the time to do this level of research before just integrating something is huge.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (32:30.686)
That’s how I do it. Yes.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (32:43.028)
Because to your point, there’s so many out there. It’s exciting that there’s so many new companies and modalities and techniques surfacing. And we don’t want to just integrate things willy nilly. We really want to be discerning and do our own inquiry and research into what they are before you entrust your patients to this thing.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (33:02.681)
Absolutely. So these tests are different because they’re lab-derived tests. So they don’t need FDA clearance to be sold on the market. This is different from a medical device or a new chemotherapy pill that has to go through all this vigorous interrogation from the FDA before you can actually use them. so consumers are not, they’re not aware, and so you have to be careful.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (33:23.285)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (33:30.812)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. But how cool that you’re taking that initiative to do, the extra mile and do your own research. Are they, are they really delivering on what they say they can deliver on? So I love that. I do want to ask a little more specifically about the test that’s rather than looking at tumor cells or DNA methylation, it’s looking at the immune system. And can you say more about that? Okay.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (33:52.975)
Yeah, so that is the prototype test. So that was the one out of Cambridge, and it looks at different amino acid changes on the immunoglobulins and trying to predict cancer. So this picks up cancers and thyroid cancers and prostate cancer. They seem to be doing very well in colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer, but these are, again, these are immune.

change, these are cancers that cause immune changes that potentially we can pick up earlier. And so I like that concept because by the time, if you think about it, by the time a tumor sheds in the blood, it’s probably stage two or three, right? So if we’re picking it up when we see early immune changes, perhaps that’s when we can pick it up at stage one or stage zero.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (34:35.178)
Right, exactly.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (34:42.728)
Yeah, that’s what’s so powerful. And what I want to lean into for a second here is there’s some tests as far as I understand it that are looking for tumor markers, you know, to your point, the tumor is releasing DNA methylation. The tumor is releasing proteins, but how can we get there even earlier when it’s just a cancer cell that’s roaming around looking for a place to take root?

Vershalee Shukla, MD (35:09.446)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (35:09.846)
And so when we’re looking at the immune system, our body is so intelligent and is responding immediately, probably before that cancer cell has become a tumor.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (35:22.018)
Absolutely. And so that’s the biggest chance that we have to catch it early.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (35:29.056)
completely. What does that potentially look like? And again, acknowledging the nuance, the bio individuality of patients. But if someone, you know, decided to do an early screening, no symptoms, and something came back that there are some cancer cells going on here, but there’s actually no tumor anywhere. What would that look like for you?

Vershalee Shukla, MD (35:50.908)
So that looks like close monitoring. So usually I will follow those patients very closely, probably every four to six months, doing routine imaging, more blood tests, trying to find out where their cancer is.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (35:53.663)
Okay.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (36:07.284)
And then is this where we’re going deeper into, okay, what changes can we make in the meantime? Are there lifestyle shifts? Are there diet shifts, sleep shifts? What can we do to see what might be going on in the body, optimize the body a little bit more?

Vershalee Shukla, MD (36:24.6)
Absolutely. I think that’s a huge opportunity. Looking at things like PFAS levels, donating blood, all of those types of things can help reduce your risk or your burden for cancer and your toxin burden in your blood. And so there’s so many new things that are up and coming, cancer vaccines. So this whole area of cancer prevention is changing. There’s a doctor in California, Patrick Shushung, who’s trying to stimulate your own natural killer cells. And so the whole

areas changing.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (36:55.956)
Yeah, it’s so powerful and all of the facets are so important. We need these early detection. need, there’s a time and a place for the chemo and the radiation and the surgery and the immunotherapy. And, you know, over here in the integrative world, we’re also really interested in what are the other factors going on? What else is?

Vershalee Shukla, MD (37:16.475)
Do you want me to turn on the lights? Am I getting too dark?

Leigh Ann Lindsey (37:19.958)
You could give it try, sure.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (37:22.715)
because the sun’s setting here. I’ll turn on a light over here. If that helps. Is that helpful? I’m sorry about that.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (37:24.278)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (37:31.594)
I think so, yeah. Well, that’s okay. I just made a note, so the editor will cut it.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (37:37.563)
Okay, good, good. Is it too bright or you want me to turn it down? Okay.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (37:40.904)
No, I think that’s perfect. Yeah. This idea of on some level are there genetic factors? Yes, but there can be many, lifestyle factors. And what is going on?

Because I think the reality is our bodies are actually designed to fight cancer cells. So what we want to understand deeper is why is my body no longer able to fight it and is a part of that a part of it because it’s all fighting all these pollutants and chemicals and it’s off trying to deal with these maybe hormone imbalances that have been going on for years. The mold toxicity in my world, the trauma that’s unresolved, it’s keeping your nervous system in a chronic state of fight or flight.

So, but what gets exciting about that is, you again, in my world, when someone comes in with, you know, stage two, three or four, it’s, we want to still ask all those questions, but there is so much more urgency behind it.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (38:33.86)
.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (38:38.664)
And we’ve got to ask all those questions in conjunction often with the chemo and the radiation and the surgery and the immunotherapy, et cetera. But what’s so exciting about the early detection and detecting cancer when it’s just a cell, not a tumor, it hasn’t taken root anywhere is we still want to ask these deeper questions. What could be contributing to this? How’s your sleep?

Is there chemical toxicity? Is there trauma that’s unmetabolized? But it doesn’t have to be so urgent and frantic. And I think that makes a huge difference time-wise, financially, all of the above.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (39:17.665)
Absolutely. It used to be so many people were focusing just on the metabolic factors. You know, we’re obese, we’re not exercising enough, we’re not eating healthy.

But all these toxins now have really come into play, microplastics. In some of our young firefighters, we actually took their kidney cancer and we sent it to a lab in Boston, and they could test the levels of PFAS near the tumor, and that was eight times higher than the normal level. And so we know more and more of these cancers are environmentally related, and so there’s important detoxes and saunas and all of those things that we have to do now.

to be safe, not just exercise and eating well. You have to eat organic and you have to be mindful of the toxins and the plastics and so all of that is not normal.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (39:59.638)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (40:07.836)
Yeah, there’s like so many places I could go with you that I want to hear your insight onto. to me, this seems like part of the reason why cancer is developing so much younger is kids are just coming into the world and immediately there is already just such a higher toxic burden than there was for generations before.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (40:29.026)
I agree with that. I very much agree with that.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (40:32.82)
Okay, so I wanna ask a question about the blood test. What I do wanna ask really quickly is that other side of the testing, what might be going on? Is that a part of what you’re looking at within your center? Are you guys doing PFAS testing and hormones and sleep stuff and looking at all those facts or factors?

Vershalee Shukla, MD (40:55.716)
So we do a lot of PFAS testing. We use Eurofin’s lab out of, they’re actually in California. So we use them and they have a very broad panel for all the different analytes. And so that’s helpful to understand and donating plasma is one of the ways you can decrease your PFAS. And so that’s something I encourage my patients to do.

And so we do, we have started doing some microplastic testing. because I do the whole body MRI, I find a lot of white matter changes in young patients and heart disease in young patients that are, they look very healthy and fit. And so I believe that’s from the microplastics. And so we work, we work with a research lab, the Nodal lab out of Harvard, and they’re able to test this. But now there’s new blood filters coming that will be able to remove microplastics, but also.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (41:45.919)
Hmm.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (41:49.421)
donating blood and plasma helps because then you’re regenerating new blood and you’ve gotten rid of some of the microplastics in your system. And so, yeah, I’m a big believer in donating.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (42:01.598)
Yeah, that’s fast and that’s not one I’ve heard before as almost like a detox method.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (42:06.657)
Yes. So if they did a big study on the Australian firefighters and their elevated PFAS levels and they showed that the more that they donated, their levels normalized. so, and there’s not.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (42:17.342)
wow and they stayed normalized. wasn’t just like it dropped but maybe there’s there’s PFAS or there’s plastics being stored in organs so it goes back up again.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (42:26.393)
It does, but so they did it on a continuous cycle. So they would donate every couple months and they kept donating. And so we’ve started a big program here in Arizona where we go out and we have patients donate blood and plasma to reduce their levels.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (42:31.635)
Okay, got it.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (42:43.476)
Yeah, that’s so fascinating. Again, I feel like I could have you on for like a series of six episodes where we go into, now treatment, okay, now detox, all these different things. I know you do so much work with the firefighters. that, I mean, that in and of itself could be a whole conversation. Okay, so what I do wanna ask is, as it pertains to the blood tests, it’s very clear different tests are good for different things. But if you’ve got someone coming in and going, Dr. Shukla,

I feel fine, I’m healthy. I just want to get a sense of what my, if anything is going on, if something’s going on early stage, which would be the one you might recommend for them?

If there’s no, like maybe they’ve done even like a QT scan, the QT ultrasound and no tumors came up, but they’re like, you know, I’d still like to do some kind of blood test just to make sure there aren’t any cancer cells floating around or if there are, we’re catching them early. But if they’ve done, for example, any kind of imaging and it’s all come back negative, is there still a blood test? Okay.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (43:23.948)
Which part?

Vershalee Shukla, MD (43:42.946)
I would do the cancer guard. This is where I do, because it’s so good at picking up those aggressive cancers that you can’t see well on imaging. So an esophageal cancer you can’t really see, you can’t really see the stomach cancer. Those are hard to see on imaging and those will kill you. So those are ones you don’t want to miss.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (43:59.35)
Okay, that I think helps cut through it because on the one hand I wanted to cover each of these so that the audience can go, let me write these down. Let me start asking my doctor about it. Let me ask them which is the one that could be best for me. And that’s ultimately what we need to do is take responsibility for working with our practitioner to find what’s best for us. But to also have you kind of give it to us in that way of like,

If there’s one, let’s look into Cancer Guard if this is kind of the scenario that’s going on.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (44:29.43)
Yeah, I have a lot of patients who do the whole body MRI and that’s where I say do the cancer guard.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (44:34.216)
Yeah. Well, and to your point, I’m actually doing a whole body MRI end of January. Just because I’ve never done one, I want to have a baseline.

that I can compare things to that way if five years from now, 10 years from now, what something shows up, I can go, I know in 2026, nothing was there. So this had to have shown up sometime in between then. So, but it’s the same concept with these blood tests. It’s so good to have a baseline, but a baseline in a much more comprehensive way beyond just kind of standard blood work of like, yeah, your vitamin levels are fine. This is fine to be able to go, you know, for me with the RGCC,

see it’s like your cancer cell count was this in 2020. Let’s check back in and see what it is now. Has it gone down? Has it gone up? All the different things.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (45:29.591)
Yeah, no, I agree. The standard testing is just inadequate. So we need to be doing newer testing.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (45:33.31)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and what you’re seeing with patients speaks to that, which is, imagine a lot of these firefighters coming in, I don’t know what their traditional conventional blood work looks like, but it might not look like anything that’s concerning to your average, you know, primary care physician.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (45:55.059)
Absolutely. I mean it’s very basic. It’s testing for thyroid and testing for all the vitamins and things. That’s just not enough.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (46:05.6)
completely, because the problem with I think that conventional testing is it’s only meant to catch things when the house is on fire. No pun intended with firefighters, but you know, it’s sort of like, could we catch some of these things earlier? Because again, no matter what it is, whether it’s thyroid issues or hormone issues, the earlier we can catch them.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (46:14.897)
Exactly.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (46:28.903)
If it’s just my stove’s on fire versus my whole house, that’s much easier to sit with.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (46:35.734)
No, I agree.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (46:37.716)
Okay, so let’s move on. I wanna talk a little bit about AI. AI is such a topic of conversation in so many different fields. There’s concerns with it, there’s exciting things with it, but I think in the medical field is one of the places I’m most excited for. yeah, please, yeah.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (46:54.135)
Can I get a drink for one second?

you

Vershalee Shukla, MD (47:08.297)
I’m talking too much.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (47:09.942)
You

That means I’m doing my job well.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (47:15.19)
Yes.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (47:19.73)
AI use in the medical field is one of the places I’m most excited for it because the patterns it’s going to be able to detect that we maybe haven’t been able to pull out are really exciting. So I want to understand what’s going on here. What are you looking into? How are you using this? Are you using this actually with patients yet? Are you still in a bit of a research phase with it looking into different companies?

Vershalee Shukla, MD (47:45.846)
We’re still in the modeling phase. So I’m working with a company called See the Signs and it’s a female founder from, she’s actually British, but they won the Cancer Moonshot Award probably like two or three years ago. And they started at Mayo Clinic and they just interrogated all different symptoms, lab values, imaging, and they predicted cancer much earlier than what we are doing as physicians. And so

Leigh Ann Lindsey (47:48.895)
Okay.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (48:15.529)
Firefighters, most of them are male, so it’s very hard to get much of anything out of them, imaging-wise or even discussion-wise. And so this, for me, is another way to try to look at and try to understand patterns. What are we doing? Why are we getting cancer?

Leigh Ann Lindsey (48:22.623)
you

Leigh Ann Lindsey (48:33.398)
And what does that look like? Is this we are putting in all of their blood work, all of their imaging scans, and it’s just doing an analysis of that? Does it go beyond that? What are maybe the data points we’re giving the AI?

Vershalee Shukla, MD (48:46.133)
Yes, like hundreds of thousands of data points. Where they worked, where they grew up, what are their outdoor activities, do they have another job outside of being a firefighter, weight changes, I mean you name it, it’s symptoms that they have, their personal history, you know, all of their blood, because they get physicals every year, we have all of their blood work for every year, have they gone on certain fires?

Leigh Ann Lindsey (48:51.615)
Okay.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (49:15.561)
where other people have gotten cancer, have they worked with other firefighters that gotten cancer. So we start to put all of this together, you know, they’re drinking, they’re smoking, they’re exercising, trying to really identify who’s getting cancer. So we have something interesting. We have this famous station in Phoenix Fire that has probably six kidney cancers that I diagnosed within less than probably two years. I’ve probably diagnosed over

Leigh Ann Lindsey (49:24.928)
Mm-hmm.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (49:44.982)
800 kidney cancers. So the firefighters, think about it, they’re high risk because of their heat and the toxins and they’re accumulating and so what are the firefighters who are getting kidney cancer? What are they doing? Are they going out after a fire and drinking? Are the ones that not getting kidney cancer, they going home and hydrating a lot? So we’re just trying to understand human behavior and you know, why are these people getting cancer? And so

Leigh Ann Lindsey (50:09.672)
Mm-hmm.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (50:14.365)
I’m super excited about it because it’s a way to open up screening to the entire country. There’s 300,000 firefighters that are dying of cancer, but also we also are getting the same type of toxins, just not at the same level. And so it’s going to help everybody.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (50:31.858)
Right, and so the See the Signs company, are they only working with firefighters data or no? They’re working beyond that. It’s just that’s your main demographic. So that’s what you’re working with them with specifically.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (50:44.945)
Absolutely. they started at Mayo Clinic Rochester. I think, you know, if you look at their stats, they’re picking up, they’re in England, they’re very heavily used at the NHS and they’re picking up a cancer, I think one cancer every 20 minutes. It’s phenomenal. Yeah. Very, very, they’re doing a great job. And so I’m excited to model all my patients and then, you know, see how it performs.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (51:11.432)
Wow. that’s so fascinating. Yeah. That’s so exciting. I think just the implications for AI in the medical field are huge. And so that’s really exciting. I’m going to have to look into her a little bit more. That might be a great guest to have on too, to talk about that. yeah.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (51:26.741)
I have one more great guest for you. Yes, I have something exciting. There’s a new breast company called B-Sound, B-Sound Breast. And she was also a young lady like yourself and felt a mass and had to fight to get an ultrasound. And so she turned out to be a NASA physicist. And they have now invented a new ultrasound that has infrared technology that can tell

Leigh Ann Lindsey (51:37.76)
Okay.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (51:55.804)
if a mass in your breast is cancerous or not.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (51:59.53)
wow, without needing to do a biopsy.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (52:02.238)
without needing to do a biopsy and it’s good for young women and so it’s just an ultrasound with this new cool infrared technology.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (52:11.666)
my gosh, that’s so cool. It’s so exciting. But you know, it takes me down a whole conversation of we could talk about why these aren’t being used in conventional medicine.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (52:14.012)
It’s so cool.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (52:28.882)
And at the same time, know, I already know a lot of the answers there, which is things have to get approved, insurance has to approve it. It’s so slow moving, which is really hard to get things to that place. But that’s ultimately where, that could lead us to, I think, a really disempowered place. Or it leads me to where I ultimately end, which is we have to take responsibility for doing our own research. I think the vast majority of conventional oncologists are trained in

Vershalee Shukla, MD (52:38.484)
So,

Leigh Ann Lindsey (52:58.078)
the core things, they’re not recommending anything else, either because they don’t know it exists or they can’t. And so I, as the patient, have to take responsibility for researching what’s out there. And then me, Leanne, as a practitioner, how can I help provide that information of what’s out there? You the podcast is a huge way of trying to do that and go, there’s so much more than maybe what we’re being exposed to in conventional medicine. And that’s not to demonize conventional medicine. That’s just to say,

There’s an infrastructure and a framework there that they have to work within. We have to take ownership for seeing what else is out there.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (53:33.683)
I mean, it’s just, I mean, the mammogram seems so barbaric and old and I know. we definitely, women deserve better. We all deserve better. Why should we wait for someone to have symptoms of pancreatic cancer and then have a death sentence? We should just be picking these up early and these people should live. This is not right.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (53:41.62)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (53:58.858)
completely and if we want to bring it down to like logistics and finances, you know, it’s hard to go, but it’s not covered by insurance. And so I don’t want to do it. I can’t do it. But if we zoom out far enough, it’s easy for me to click into, look, paying.

Honestly, I think when I did the RGCC, it was like $1,200. Paying $1,200 for this test is gonna save me thousands of dollars, so much time in the future to be able to catch this early, which is ultimately what happened for me. I caught it super early. All I had to do was have surgery. I follow up on it regularly, but I work with cancer patients in all stages, one, two, three, four, and.

The finances the emotional toll the time off from work the ripple effect on your family and loved ones it makes that 1200 look like such a Yes, a no-brainer

Vershalee Shukla, MD (54:56.402)
Absolutely, I agree. It’s, I mean, the QT ultrasound is six to $800. It’s not a lot of money. It’s people spend that much on Botox. This is your health and well-being. I mean, also insurance is not always insurance because insurance, you have these large copays and deductibles. And so, I mean, spending a little bit of cash on your well-being and your longevity is worth it.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (55:21.91)
Yeah, well, and just to that end, and I promise I’ll land this plane because I know I don’t want to keep you too long. But to that end, what I often hear, and this was actually my own experience, is if there are no major signs or symptoms, the doctor won’t approve it. The doctor won’t refer you to even a mammogram or an MRI.

And so you’ve got it, you’re gonna have to explore it on your own anyways, which was the case for me. I woke up one night with blinding pain in my right breast, which was bizarre already to start with. And so I went to my primary care and she was like, you know what, it’s probably your gallbladder. You’re young, it’s probably nothing, it’s probably your gallbladder, your blood work looks fine. And I don’t know what it was, but I had some weird intuition of like…

I need to look into this and for some reason I had the intuition of don’t ask for a mammogram, do an ultrasound. I don’t even, I don’t know where that knowledge came from, but it just like got downloaded, but I paid for it out of pocket. wasn’t going to try and convince them to let me do this. was like, I feel this something’s up. I need to go have an ultrasound. And then we caught it. But if I had just accepted that doctor’s two cents,

Vershalee Shukla, MD (56:19.591)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (56:34.876)
who knows where I would have been a year later, two years later, you know, three years later. So taking the power back, think. And that there’s so many amazing new resources.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (56:38.867)
Absolutely.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (56:42.745)
Yes, I agree.

Absolutely, and there’s, I mean there’s physicians too who want to do new things as well and so seeking those physicians out and trying to get new technology and be tested. There’s nothing wrong. I want to be, I want to find cancer before you have any symptoms and that’s how everybody should feel.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (57:05.352)
Yeah, well, that’s the whole goal of having amazing guests on like yourself is, you know, now the whole audience has been exposed to you and they get to go research you and see if you might be a really good fit for them, whether that’s prevention or treatment or any kind of phase of this. So I’m so excited. Thank you so much for coming on. Was there anything that we didn’t cover? I know there’s a million things we could, but anything that we didn’t cover related to today that you feel is really important?

Vershalee Shukla, MD (57:25.243)
Thank you for having me.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (57:34.789)
No, I think you did a great job. You hit a lot of different areas. Yes.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (57:36.886)
thank you. Okay, thank you. Trying to keep it refined and also, you know, cover as much as we can at the same time. So I’m going to make sure it’s linked in the show notes, but just so the audience hears it, can you share your center, your website, where people can find you to learn more?

Vershalee Shukla, MD (57:54.489)
Yeah, absolutely. So our center is Vincere Cancer Center. We’re located in Scottsdale, Arizona. And I see cancer patients and I also do cancer screening for patients. And so we’re happy to take care of you.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (58:11.027)
Yeah, we’ll make sure the website’s linked in the show notes below so people can reach out. Thank you so much, Dr. Shukla. This was amazing. I’m really, really excited about this.

Vershalee Shukla, MD (58:21.316)
Thank you so much, but definitely look up Bailey Ringer and be sound brown.