[December 04, 2012]

ChemoFx® Used to Develop Multi-Gene Predictors to Chemotherapy in Breast Cancer

Precision Therapeutics recently conducted two studies that evaluate cell line derived Multi-Gene Predictors of pathologic response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in breast cancer.

Cell Line Derived Multi-Gene Predictor of Pathologic Response to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy in Breast Cancer: A Validation Study on US Oncology 02-103 Clinical Trial assesses the predictive accuracy of a multi-gene predictor to four commonly used chemotherapies in breast cancer patients. The MGP was developed from a panel of 42 breast cancer cell-lines treated with the 4-drug combination in vitro and was evaluated for predictive ability on patient samples obtained during a prospective neoadjuvant clinical trial.

An independent validation performed by MD Anderson Cancer Center on patients from the US Oncology 02-103 clinical trial indicated that this cell line derived MGP was able to differentiate between patients who would experience complete response and those who would have residual disease after neoadjuvant treatment with the selected agents.

Precision also conducted a parallel study with MD Anderson Cancer Center, Yale Cancer Center and the University of Virginia. A Systematic Evaluation of Multi-Gene Predictors for the Pathological Response of Breast Cancer Patients to Chemotherapy examined 42 breast cancer cell lines by using the ChemoFx in-vitro chemoresponse test afer treatment with two widely used standard combination chemotherapies for breast cancer. Two different cell line sets and two independent prediction methods were used to develop cell line-based MGPs. The evaluation yielded high prediction performances by these MGPs, which were also able to predict patient clinical outcomes for estrogen-receptor (ER)-negative patients, which has proven difficult to date. Results demonstrate the potential for using the ChemoFx test as a model system in creating MGPs for stratifying patients' therapeutic responses.

"Multi-gene predictors provide an opportunity for more rapid predictive and/or prognostic information for these patients as well as a molecular basis for the use of the ChemoFx assay," says Alan Wells, MD, DMSc. Dr. Wells is a Thomas Gill Professor of Pathology at the University of Pittsburgh and was consulted for his expertise in cancer treatment.

About Precision Therapeutics

Precision Therapeutics, a leading life-science company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is dedicated to personalized cancer care. Precision offers a portfolio of products developed to help guide physicians and patients with difficult clinical decisions throughout the cancer care continuum.

Precision's state of the art Comprehensive Tumor Profiling is an integrated, straightforward approach combining three core platforms of personalized medicine to capture the total sum of genomic, proteomic and functional information for each patient's cancer.

Precision's first commercial test, ChemoFx^®, is a proprietary drug response marker which measures an individual's malignant tumor response to a range of standard therapeutic alternatives under consideration by a physician. Precision currently receives ChemoFx^® specimens from 271 top medical institutions including 20 of the 21 National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Member Institutions, and 8 of the US News and World Report Top 10 Hospitals for Cancer Care. To date, approximately 80,000 patient specimens have been submitted for ChemoFx^® testing using 105 unique chemotherapy treatments and combinations.

For more information, visit: www.precisiontherapeutics.com or www.chemofx.com.

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