Pennsylvania-based Precision Therapeutics has presented data on ChemoFx diagnostic test , a drug response marker that showed positive results in determining individual cancer treatment plans, when using various chemotherapeutic agents.
The company claims that its drug response marker has pioneered a method of identifying cancer cell response and sensitivity to various chemotherapeutic and biologic agents at the biopsy stage, before a patient actually begins chemotherapy. This provides a custom blueprint of a patient’s probable tumor response.
The result is an insight into which chemotherapy drugs are likely to work in an individual cancer patient’s own body, along with those that are unlikely to be effective in shrinking and killing the cancerous tumor. This information can then be used to help guide chemotherapy treatment decisions.
The diagnostic test works by taking a sample of a patient’s tumor, which is removed during biopsy or surgery, and sending that sample to the company’s laboratory for sensitivity and resistance testing. In a controlled environment that closely parallels what happens within the human body itself, those cells are incubated and treated by a fully-automated system with a number of chemotherapy and biologic agents selected by that patient’s physician.
The company then sends the physician a report that details how the cancerous cells responded to each drug or chemotherapy combination. Integrating the results with clinical judgment, the physician can then use the report to support his decision on a treatment regimen for the patient.
Sean McDonald, CEO of Precision Therapeutics, said: “Patients and their physicians will have an understanding of how chemo will impact the cancer cells themselves long before it impacts the patient. By testing multiple agents on a patient’s cancer cells in the lab, ChemoFx determines the chemotherapies that are likely to be effective and avoid those that are likely to be ineffective, giving patients an advantage in their fight against cancer.”