Daniel A. Saez, M.Sc., Treatment and Trials Navigator

Guiding patients to clinical trials and other treatment options.

Daniel Saez is the voice of LungMATCH. He’s the person you hear and the navigator you’re most likely to talk to when you call GO2 for Lung Cancer’s HelpLine looking for one-on-one guidance about your treatment options. And it’s the role he’s been preparing for since he was a teenager.

Saez, who has a master’s degree in physiology and pharmacology from Wake Forest University, always knew he wanted to work in health care—and he knew he wanted to help patients. In graduate school, he studied neglected tropical diseases because he was “interested in helping populations that have lower access to health care.” The lab he worked in was, coincidentally, a head and neck cancer lab, so he learned about testing and genetic markers from his fellow researchers. All of which is to say: his educational career prepared him well for his current job.

His passion, however, is borne from experience. His father died of brain cancer when he was 15. Saez recalls, “Nobody knew anything. It just felt so frustrating. Looking back, I wish we had a LungMATCH for brain cancer. I wish we had a HelpLine to give us a Phone Buddy and ask questions. Are we doing the right thing? What should we do?”

Now he helps lung cancer patients and caregivers navigate those same questions.

LungMATCH offers resources, guidance to patients in need.

The #1 reason people call LungMATCH is for help identifying a clinical trial. Simply put, they’re looking for a match. Perhaps they’re starting a new treatment and looking for what’s next. Other times, they’re just looking to understand their options. Saez and his colleagues walk patients through those options, be it a clinical trial or another treatment option. For those who have no access to trials (e.g., someone living in a rural area without the resources to travel to a trial site), the LungMATCH navigators will look for a workaround.

“There are sometimes FDA compassionate use and off-label exemptions available for your doctor to give you the same drugs outside of the clinical trial,” Saez explains.

In addition to questions about treatment options, patients and caregivers also call seeking an impartial opinion about their current course of treatment. Saez says one caregiver he talked to several times called him “an arbitrary third party whose only interest is in what’s best for the patient.”

Saez also points out that LungMATCH is more than just one-on-one conversations. “We provide empowerment for patients through our educational materials and by being able to connect patients to other resources.”

Finally, Saez stresses that LungMATCH’s work also helps providers. “We believe strongly as an organization, and within the Science & Research team, that creating an empowered, educated patient also leads to a more thoughtful and efficient conversation with physicians and the entire health care team.”

Get free, one-on-one guidance about your treatment options through LungMATCH.