This week we are at the 2015 ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, held in Orlando, Fla. Our collaborators are presenting three studies that demonstrate how the Epic Sciences no cell left behind™ platform could be used as a blood test for certain types of metastatic prostate and bladder cancers — liquid biopsies to predict which patients will best respond to certain therapies before they are treated.
Today’s blog post highlights one of our studies presented at this week’s meeting. This was selected as one of the meeting’s top abstracts:
Patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer are typically treated with two types of therapeutics: androgen receptor signaling (ARS) inhibitors and taxane-based chemotherapy. But these therapies don’t work for everyone and it’s impossible to know beforehand which patients will and which won’t. As a result, many patients with this type of prostate cancer unnecessarily receive treatment that not only doesn’t work, but by not utilizing the right drug can shorten survival.
To find a method for predicting response to therapy, blood samples were collected from 188 metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer patients before they underwent treatment with ARS inhibitors or taxanes. Our no cell left behind™ platform helped detect circulating tumor cells in these blood samples — cancer cells that break away from the main tumor and travel through the blood stream as it metastasizes to other parts of the body. With our technology, the molecular signatures, also known as biomarkers, of these cells were also determined
For the patients who went on to receive ARS inhibitor therapy, those positive for one particular biomarker responded better to the treatment (on drug for approximately 7 months longer). Those patients whose circulating tumor cells lacked the biomarker responded better to taxane chemotherapy (approximately 3 months longer).
Additional trials are planned to further test this method as a way to predict which metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer patients will best respond to treatment before they receive it.