press release - UK - Targeted testing offers treatment hope for ovarian cancer patients

Public release date: 30-May-2011

Targeted testing offers treatment hope for ovarian cancer patients 
 
Women with ovarian cancer could be helped by a new test that identifies the specific type of tumour they have, a conference will hear this week.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh hope this improved diagnosis will help doctors to personalise treatment programmes so that patients receive the most effective drugs.
The Edinburgh team worked with scientists from Ireland to identify six subgroups of the disease, each of which had a different genetic signature.
To do this, they analysed tissue samples from more than 350 ovarian cancer patients and compared this information with the patients' medical records.
The results show how genetic profiling of ovarian cancers might predict a person's response to drug treatments.
Researchers say the development may be particularly helpful for women with an aggressive form of ovarian cancer, which is typically caught late by current diagnostic tests.
This type of aggressive – or 'high grade' – cancer can respond well to a recently-developed drug that targets the blood supply of the cancer cells. (blogger's note - it is not clear from this press release  if this is specific to serous cell type)
The team hopes that by identifying the women with this type of cancer at the earliest opportunity, they could use the drug more effectively and help to improve survival rates.
The findings will be presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) conference, being held in Chicago this week.
Dr Charlie Gourley of the University of Edinburgh, who led the study, said: "This research shows that by conducting a detailed analysis of the genes of ovarian cancers we may be able to identify those patients who will respond well to new drug treatments. This could bring valuable improvements in survival rates for the disease and would help us to personalise a patient's care to ensure the greatest possible success."
Ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cancer in women, with around 6,800 women being diagnosed every year in the UK.
Of these, nearly two-thirds will not live beyond five years of their diagnosis.
Chemotherapy and surgery can be effective treatments, but women could have a greater chance of surviving the disease if it is identified earlier on.
The findings will be presented at ASCO on Saturday 4th June.

Technology Review: Fine-tuning Cancer Treatments

Scientists at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital will test 400 compounds, including chemotherapy drugs and molecularly targeted treatments, on 1,000 cancer cell lines containing cancer-related genetic mutations in an effort to advance personalized medicine. The findings are expected to help drugmakers design clinical studies that include only patients who are most likely to benefit from experimental cancer drugs.
 
"...While a number of molecularly targeted cancer drugs, such as gleevec and herceptin, are already on the market, the effectiveness of most of these drugs depends on a single genetic mutation or molecular marker in the tumor. Scientists say that incorporating the diversity of cancer genomics in much greater detail will enable more personalized treatment for a broader number of patients...cont'd

Now's the time to find biomarkers on purpose -- Annals of Oncology

"Studies need to be conducted to determine the optimal design for using genome-wide profiling to identify putative biomarkers of drug response. To date, most biomarkers of drug response identified through genome-wide profiling have occurred through retrospective analysis of available tissue. To really progress this field, realistic planning for biomarker discovery and validation in clinical trials needs to be conducted. We, as clinical scientists, need to progress from only using convenient clinical cohorts to identify biomarkers to actually planning and following through with prospective clinical trials whose aims are to discover and/or validate putative biomarkers of drug response. To initiate a study without a realistic plan for discovery and validation reflects a lack of serious desire to find robust clinical predictors.^.... Until this becomes more commonplace, the genomic revolution will be focused on manuscript generation and investigator career development, leaving the benefit to patients nothing more than an unrealized dream."

abstract: Combining Targeted Therapies: Practical Issues to Consider at the Bench and Bedside -- The Oncologist

"Recent and continuing developments in high-throughput and multiplexed assay platforms as well as in disciplines such as bioinformatics and biostatistics will surely shape the future of clinical trials. Application of novel techniques in a comprehensive approach, revealing the interrelations among targets and the mechanisms of action underlying cancer (systems biology), may lead to comprehensive diagnostic tools (systems pathology) and specific combinations of drugs (cocktails of monoclonal antibodies, RNA therapeutics, or others) in what has been called the actualization of personalized medicine. We know that momentum in the era of targeted therapy will continue to accelerate, bringing new hope to our patients
with cancer and their families"

full free access: Targeting Insulin and Insulin-Like Growth Factor Pathways in Epithelial Ovarian Cancer

Note: a highly technical paper - look at Table 2; 7.5 = clinical trials link; 8.0 = Conclusion

full free access: Jan 2/2010 - Targeted Therapy in Ovarian Cancer

Review Article
Targeted Therapy in Ovarian Cancer
Lyndsay J. Willmott and John P. Fruehauf
Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California Irvine, Orange, CA 92868, USA Academic Editor: Charles F. Levenback