Jackie’s Story with the Galleri® test

[Jackie] My name is Jackie, and this is my story with Galleri.

I live in Arkansas. I'm a professor of education. I've been teaching 45 years now.

I started off as a special education teacher working with kids with a variety of disabilities and behavior disorders in kids who are autistic.

In my spare time I like to write Western novels and also raise miniature donkeys.

On my mother's side of the family there's a very strong history of cancer. That's one of the things that I always discussed with my family doctor.

I was watching the local TV station and one of their news reports was that the Mercy System here in Fort Smith was starting to offer the Galleri test, and it was to screen for a wide variety of cancers.

I thought that, well, that sounds pretty promising.

Next day when I saw my family doctor I asked her about it, and she said she would recommend it because she thought that was kind of the way in the future.

The Galleri test is a simple blood test that screens for many different kinds of cancer before symptoms appear.

When I received the initial report back from the Galleri test it showed that there was a Cancer Signal Detected with a predicted origin of soft tissue and bone cancer.

[Dr. Mackey] I'm Dr. Daniel Mackey. I'm a medical oncologist. I've been with Mercy for seven years.

I got the call about how we had a patient who had a positive signal with the Galleri test and the patient was going to be seeing me in the office.

And I remember that day reviewing the patient's chart just before going into the patient's room, and I'm thinking here I am about to see the first patient across the entire ministry who tested positive having no symptoms whatsoever.

And so it was humbling, and I remember thinking that that very day you know you know that history is changing.And I was just stunned to be a part of it.

[Jackie] At that point they were able to schedule me for a CT scan, and the CT scan did confirm that there was a mass.

[Jackie’s wife] Jackie's tumor typically is not found until at least twice the size that it was when it would be causing problems because where it was located he wasn't having any problems at all yet.

[Jackie] I just had my yearly physical and all the test results were perfect.

I had no pain. I had no symptoms at all.

And so the Galleri test was able to show the signal that I may potentially have cancer much sooner.

It was real critical I think for me that this was detected so early.

[Dr. Mackey] He did go for surgical resection here just a few months ago with negative margins.

He's recovering.

He's in Florida now with his grandkids at Disney World.

[Jackie] I had no symptoms, no indication at all that I had cancer.

This particular test was able to protect this, and that allowed me to get an early start on treatment, which I think is really critical on dealing with cancer.

It's really hard to say how much this test has meant to me personally.

After battling cancer for two years, Jackie passed away in July of 204. His family hopes to raise awareness with is testimonial and he following message:

[Amanda S. - Jackie’s daughter] “Screening with Galleri gave my dad a fighting chance. He wasn’t showing any symptoms when he took the Galleri test. By taking the this test, they discovered his cancer early, and that gave him the ability to fight for two years. We hope his story will help others get one step ahead of cancer and give someone else a fighting chance like our dad had.”

Based on a clinical study of people ages 50 to 79 around 1% are expected to receive a cancer signal detected result which includes predicted cancer signal origins. After diagnostic evaluation, around 62% of these people are expected to have a confirmed cancer diagnosis. 

The overall sensitivity in study participants with head and neck cancer was 85.7% (63.2% for stage I, 82.4% stage II, 84.2% stage III, 96.0% stage IV).