JAMA Oncol: breakthrough! Blood test can predict the best treatment for advanced prostate cancer

July 26, 2018 / bioin / - currently, there is an urgent need for a blood test method to determine whether patients with metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer (mcrpc) should receive androgen receptor signaling (ARS) inhibitors or paclitaxel treatment So researchers from Lawson Institute of health and other institutions have conducted a study to explore whether a method that has been used to identify nuclear localization androgen receptor splicing variant 7 (ar-v7) in circulating tumor cells can be used to determine the different overall survival rates of patients treated with paclitaxel or ARS inhibitors Photo source: Lawson Health Research Institute, a double-blind study conducted from December 31, 2012 to September 1, 2016, included 142 patients with mcrpc confirmed by histological analysis who were treated at Memorial Sloan Caitlin cancer center, Royal Marsden or London Health Science Center Researchers took blood samples of patients before they received ARS inhibitors or paclitaxel Of the 142 patients (mean age 69.5 [9.6]), 70 patients were judged as high-risk patients according to traditional prognostic factors In this group, patients with ar-v7 positive were better than those with ARS inhibitors (total median survival: 14.3 vs 7.3 months, hazard ratio: 0.62,95% CI: 0.28-13.9, P = 0.25) The effect of ARS inhibitor on ar-v7 negative patients was better than that of paclitaxel (total median survival time: 19.8 vs 12.8 months, hazard ratio: 1.67,95% CI: 1.00-2.81, P = 0.05) In general, this study suggests that using nuclear localization of ar-v7 protein in circulating tumor cells can identify patients who are more likely to benefit from taxane or ARS inhibitor therapy Reference: Howard I Scher et al, assessment of the validity of nuclear localized androgen receiver splice variant 7 in circulating tumor cells as a predictive biomarker for casting resistant state cancer, JAMA Oncology (2018) Doi: 10.1001/jamaoncol.2018.1621