The accurate prediction of patient response is a prerequisite to personalised cancer treatment. Italian SME Cellply has developed the first fully-automated diagnostic system to achieve that, ex vivo, from tumour specimen obtained in a clinical setting.
Cellply’s product, developed through the EU-funded ONCOSMART (ONCOlogic patient profiling and personalised treatment through SMART bedside diagnostics) project, provides a response to a long-standing issue. Until now, we have known that about 30-40 % of cancer patients present specific mutations that could be the focus of targeted therapies and immunotherapy. Information about this mutational status is precious: for instance, physicians have known that KRAS mutation could be targeted by anti-EGFR antibodies, but KRAS itself is not a good biomarker for predicting tumour response to therapy. Similarly, the efficacy of anti-PD1 immunotherapies has a poor correlation with the expression of PD1. As a result, mutational profiles are rarely useful as biomarkers for predicting therapy outcome.
Further details: New, ex vivo diagnostic system helps predict cancer patient response to treatment