CureMatch Co-Founder Publishes Influential Study on Immunotherapy
Study suggests that genomic profiling may help identify risk for hyper-progression after immunotherapy
SAN DIEGO, CA – May 4, 2017 – UCSD oncologist and CureMatch Co-Founder Dr. Razelle Kurzrock and colleagues have published a study in the journal Clinical Cancer Research investigating “hyper-progressors.” Hyper-progressors are patients who unexpectedly fail immunotherapy treatment within 2 months, while also experiencing rapid increases in tumor growth.
The phenomenon of hyper-progression has been observed in a fraction of patients receiving immunotherapy treatment, but the cause has not yet been determined. The purpose of the study was to determine whether genomic biomarkers could be used to identify patients who might be at risk for hyper-progression.
Retrospective Study
The retrospective study looked at 155 patients with diverse cancers who had received next-generation DNA sequencing. The study found in a portion of the patients that MDM2, MDM4, or EGFR alterations were independently correlated with hyper-progression, and suggests that caution should be taken before recommending immunotherapy in patients with these alterations.
The lead author was quoted in a STAT article summarizing the study:
“There’s some phenomenon here that seems to be true, and I think we cannot just give this therapy randomly to the patient,” the author of the study, Dr. Shumei Kato, an oncologist at UC San Diego, said in an interview with STAT. “We need to select who’s going to be on it.”
CureMatch offers a product that does exactly that – its clinical decision support platform guides oncologists in the selection of personalized therapies. The platform analyzes cancer-causing genomic mutations, or “alterations”, in tumors, and incorporates immunotherapy when considering and ranking treatments for cancer patients. A case study was recently published in NPJ Genomic Medicine that describes the remarkable recovery of a patient who was given immunotherapy, following analysis with an early version of the CureMatch platform while it was still under development at UCSD.
“CureMatch been gathering data from cases like these for years, in order to help oncologists better predict when immunotherapy would be expected to work, and when it would not,” said Martin Culjat, PhD, VP of Product at CureMatch. “This includes genomic data from hyper-progressors. Patients looking at immunotherapy should consider having their tumors profiled so that that they can take advantage of this new information.”
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About CureMatch
CureMatch™, Inc. is a San Diego-based digital health company focused on personalized medicine and combination therapy in oncology. CureMatch’s Decision Support System guides oncologists in the selection of cancer drugs that are customized for individual patients based on their molecular tumor profile. CureMatch enables oncologists to become experts in personalized medicine by providing them with actionable intelligence towards advanced cancer treatment options. For more information visit www.curematch.com.
Media Contact
Martin Culjat
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