E-Paper
Test for right cancer treatment
A new test could now be able to improve doctors' ability to recommend the right type of cancer treatment for their patients.
A new test could now be able to improve doctors' ability to recommend the right type of cancer treatment for their patients.
According to the researchers, the test, which has been developed by Anil Potti at the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy in Durham, North Carolina, is 80% accurate in predicting the right chemotherapy to cure each person's cancer.
Potti and his colleagues developed the test by analysing the known levels of gene activation in numerous types of cancer cells commonly used in laboratory tests.
A statistical analysis then revealed which patterns of gene activation were associated with the best response to various chemotherapy drugs.
The team then checked their genetic-profiling predictor using stored tumour samples taken from cancer patients. They measured the levels of gene activation in these samples by looking at the amounts of specific molecules, called messenger RNA, in the cells. The researchers then suggested a chemotherapy drug based on their predictor tool.
Because the stored tumour samples had come from patients who had already undergone various cancer treatments, researchers could easily find out whether their statistical tool would have indicated the correct choice of treatment.
It turned out that the method they developed was 80% accurate in predicting the most appropriate chemotherapy agent.
"It takes the randomness out of the treatment approach," Newscientist quoted Potti, as saying.
"At present the chances that a patient will respond to a given chemotherapy are generally no better than the flip of a coin," he added.
While Potti's team only analysed samples from patients with leukaemia, breast cancer and ovarian tumours, he said that the tool should work to predict the best drugs for other cancers, too.
"In my mind there's no reason it shouldn't be applicable beyond these types," he said.
