New Strategy to Personalize Cancer Therapies

Researchers led by Manuel Hidalgo, Vice-Director of Translational Research at CNIO, have developed a new strategy to personalized medicine in advanced cancer patients with a poor prognosis. Tumor cells can accumulate hundreds or even thousands of DNA mutations which induce the growth and spread of cancer. The number and pattern of mutations differs according to the type of tumor, even among those that are classified as part of the same type of tumors. This complexity, which researchers were not aware of just a few years ago, calls for new tools to filter relevant genetic information for the implementation and development of personalized therapies targeted at specific characteristics within each individual tumor.

The new study has been published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research. Applying this new tool, the treatments induced clinical responses in up to 77% of patients, either through the stabilization of their condition or through a partial clinical response.

During the first phase, the authors analyzed the genetic signature of the tumors –specifically, the hundreds of millions of letters that make up the exome; the part of the genome whose information produces proteins– in 23 patients suffering from advanced cancers, such as pancreatic adenocarcinomas and colon cancer. By using whole exome sequencing and bioinformatics analyses, researchers picked out mutations that could play an important role in the growth and spread of tumors.

The second part of the study involved the use of Avatar mice to study potentially effective treatments according to the patient's genetic signature. As Elena Garralda, predoctoral researcher from Hidalgo's Group, points out, avatar mice are "one of the key aspects of our research."

AVATAR MICE: A TESTING GROUND FOR DRUGS

Avatar mice are used as a testing ground, with each patient having their own equivalent animal, in order to study the effectiveness of drugs under real conditions: if the drug works in the avatar, the likelihood of it also working in the patient is very high.

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Therefore, the treatments that worked best in the avatar mice were the ones given to patients. The results showed clinical benefit, either the stabilization of the disease or a partial clinical response, in up to 77% of patients.

"We have demonstrated that it is possible to apply our personalized cancer treatment strategy to the clinic", says Garralda, adding: "as we learn more about the genetic information obtained from cancer exome sequencing, future clinical trials will allow for the inclusion of patients with specific genetic alterations, and therefore a better access to cancer drugs."

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FUTURE ASSAYS ON PANCREATIC CANCER

Currently, one the main objectives for the team is to study the efficiency of the procedures in a larger number of patients with advanced pancreatic cancer, thereby comparing them to standard treatments.

Pancreatic cancer often has a poor prognosis, with survival rates of less than 1 year. It is a complex and heterogeneous disease, meaning that the personalized study of the most relevant mutations in tumor growth (driver mutations) could be a promising strategy in the search for new treatments.



Source-Eurekalert