science report: Treating cancer as a chronic disease? (study of clear cell ovarian cancer....)

Treating cancer as a chronic disease?

ScienceDaily (Mar. 29, 2012) — New research from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute and the Rambam Medical Center may lead to the development of new methods for controlling the growth of cancer, and perhaps lead to treatments that will transform cancer from a lethal disease to a chronic, manageable one, similar to AIDS.............

".......For this study, the team took cells from one woman's ovarian clear cell carcinoma and injected them either into or alongside the human stem cell-derived environment. "We noticed very early on, rather strikingly, that the human cancer cells grow more robustly when they are in the teratoma environment compared to any other means in which we grew them, such as in a mouse muscle or under the skin of a mouse," says Skorecki.

The scientists were able to tease out six different kinds of self-renewing cells, based on behavior -- how quickly they grow, how aggressive they are, how they differentiate -- and on their molecular profile. This was a previously unknown finding, that one tumor might have such a diversity of cells with crucial fundamental growth properties. Tzukerman explains that the growth of the cancer cell subpopulations can now be explained by their proximity to the human cell environment.

The researchers cloned and expanded the six distinct cell populations and injected them into the human stem cell teratomas. One key observation is that some cells, which were not self-replicating in any other model, became self-replicating when exposed to the human cells.
Skorecki said that while he wasn't surprised that the human environment affected the growth, he was in fact surprised by the magnitude of the effect: "We've known for years now that cancers are complex organs, but I didn't think the power of the human stem cell environment would be so robust, that it would make such a big difference in how the cells were grown."........

New Patent Promises to Accelerate Cancer Trials - Moffitt (computerized system patent)

New Patent Promises to Accelerate Cancer Trials:
"A new patent has been issued to Moffitt Cancer Center for a computerized system that efficiently selects the right patient for the right clinical trial. The newly patented system matches the registered patient's own molecular profile - warehoused in a database of thousands of patient-donated biological tissue or tumor samples - to the molecular design of the drug aimed at targeting their disease at the molecular level, and does it quickly....".

press release: The Clearity Foundation - Molecular profiling reveals differences between primary and recurrent ovarian cancers

Analysis of tumor specimens uncovers changes in biomarker expression that may have implications for therapy selection for women with recurrent ovarian cancer

 "These results demonstrate the dynamic genetic changes in ovarian cancers between diagnosis and recurrence. While the expression of these and other candidate response biomarkers should be evaluated in larger studies to better understand the clinical utility of profiling recurrent tumor specimens, this report highlights our urgent need to individualize our treatment approaches in order to improve ovarian cancer survival," says Dr. Karlan, Director of the Cedars-Sinai Women's Cancer Program at the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute and a renowned expert in the field of gynecologic oncology.

".....Ovarian cancers are very different from patient to patient, which means they are likely to respond differently to FDA-approved and investigational drugs. By identifying the alterations in each tumor's information pathways, molecular profiling enables the individualization of a patient's treatment by matching those tumor alterations with one or more drugs. The Clearity Foundation has developed a process for generating this personalized diagnostic information using commercially-available molecular profiling technologies and then analyzing the results using its Diane Barton Database."

 

 

Molecular profiling reveals differences between primary and recurrent ovarian cancers | Science Codex - Clearity Foundation

Patient's Opinion: Molecular Profiling

Both Jean Mckibben and Debbie Bozsa post on ACOR (Mailing List - Ovarian Cancer) about molecular profiling at The Clearity Foundation and their website:www.clearityfoundation.org multiple times this year.

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"I had my 4^th debulking surgery on 3/3/11 for my 5^th recurrence. Initially, I did not think about to do molecular profiling because I thought it will need a lot paper work, energy and money to do it.  When you go through lot of treatments for ovarian cancer, you feel that every minute counts down your life, and you just want to spend time and money for something enjoyable. Jean encouraged me to do the molecular profiling when we exchanged email privately.  I sent in my request for the test on 3/16/11, and I got my partial result in a month, and the final result on 5/16/11. I highly recommend the test. After my surgery, my chemotherapy choice was Doxil or Topotecan.  I tried Doxil first, and then molecular profiling showed I am benefit from Doxil, not benefit from Topotecan. Now my doctor treats me with the confidence based on those biomarkers. My CA125 has been going down with 2 treatments although I have skin rash and lesions due to the side effects of Doxil.

When you go to Clearity Foundation web site, there are 3 parts.

1. Caris Life Science: They do Target Now biomarkers for drugs including: paclitaxel/docetaxel, cisplatin/carboplatin, trastuzumab, letrozole, tamoxifen, doxorubicin, topotecan/irinotecan and temozolomide. They will tell you from which drug you may benefit, which not, based on your biomarkers. There is an 11 page report sent to your doctor, including biomarker description and reference. They send the bill to insurances and patients. 

2. Clarient, Inc:  They do more tests for biomarkers to compare your biomarkers to other ovarian cancer patients in their Diane Barton Database. Dr. Laura Shawver, the founder of The Clearity Foundation, will email the result to you and call you to explain the result, and may suggest some new target therapy or clinical trials. The Clarient test will be paid by Clearity Foundation. 

3. The Clearity Foundation: They help people to pay the test cost if patients have no insurance or their insurances do not pay for the test.  They have a one page grant application for patients to complete, and can approve the application by email in one day.  People working at The Clearity Foundation are very friendly and helpful. Please call 1-855-856-0654 if you have any question.  

Please know that molecular profiling is different from tumor sensitivity or resistant assay.  Tumor sensitivity or resistant assay uses fresh tissue to culture tumor cells, add different chemo drugs, and then sees which chemo drug  kills them (cancer cells).  When I had my 3^th debulking surgery for my 4^th recurrence one year ago, my doctor sent for a tumor resistant assay. However, I did not get any result from the test because my tumor cells did not grow in their cell culture. The molecular profiling test uses tumor samples from biopsy or surgery in paraffin sections. The samples do not need to be fresh, can be a few years old. They do special staining to find biomarkers."

Yi