Personalized cancer therapy improves outcomes in advanced disease

Date:
October 2, 2020
Source:
University of California - San Diego
Summary:
Patients receiving care for advanced cancer were more likely
to survive or experience a longer period without their disease
progressing if they received personalized cancer therapy, report
researchers.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Patients receiving care for advanced cancer at Moores Cancer Center at
UC San Diego Health were more likely to survive or experience a longer
period without their disease progressing if they received personalized
cancer therapy, report University of California San Diego School of
Medicine researchers.


==========================================================================
Led by Razelle Kurzrock, MD, director of the Center for Personalized
Cancer Therapy at Moores Cancer Center and senior author of the study,
a multidisciplinary molecular tumor board was established to advise
treating physicians on course of care using an individual patient's
molecular tumor makeup to design precision medicine strategies.

"Patients who underwent a molecular tumor board-recommended therapy were
better matched to genomic alterations in their cancer and had improved outcomes," said Kurzrock. "The three-year survival for patients with
the highest degree of matching and who received a personalized cancer
therapy was approximately 55 percent compared to 25 percent in patients
who received therapy that was unmatched or had low degrees of matching."
Of 429 patients evaluated by the molecular tumor board, 62 percent were
matched to at least one drug, report the researchers in the October 2,
2020 online issue of Nature Communications. Twenty percent of patients
matched to all recommended drugs, including combination therapies.

The tumor board acted in an advisory role and treating physicians chose
not to use the board's recommended strategy in 38 percent of cases,
opting instead for a standard therapy approach that might have been
unmatched to the patient's genetic alterations or had a low degree of
matching. These patients experienced a lower progression-free survival
and overall survival rates.

The use of next-generation sequencing allows for the identification of
novel potential targets for patients with cancer to improve outcomes,
but there are challenges to using this approach widely, said Shumei Kato,
MD, associate professor of medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine
and first author.

"One of the hurdles is that every cancer patient appears to be carrying different molecular and genomic patterns despite having the same cancer
type," said Kato, a Moores Cancer Center medical oncologist specializing
in rare and gastrointestinal cancers. "This can be challenging since we
are customizing therapy based on the unique genomic pattern patients
have, and thus it is difficult to predict the response. In addition,
this approach requires multidisciplinary expertise as well as access to
drugs or clinical trials not always available in smaller practices."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
University_of_California_-_San_Diego. Original written by Yadira
Galindo. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Shumei Kato, Ki Hwan Kim, Hyo Jeong Lim, Amelie Boichard, Mina
Nikanjam,
Elizabeth Weihe, Dennis J. Kuo, Ramez N. Eskander, Aaron Goodman,
Natalie Galanina, Paul T. Fanta, Richard B. Schwab, Rebecca Shatsky,
Steven C.

Plaxe, Andrew Sharabi, Edward Stites, Jacob J. Adashek, Ryosuke
Okamura, Suzanna Lee, Scott M. Lippman, Jason K. Sicklick, Razelle
Kurzrock. Real- world data from a molecular tumor board demonstrates
improved outcomes with a precision N-of-One strategy. Nature
Communications, 2020; 11 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18613-3 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201002141905.htm

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