An innovative new treatment means practically nothing if we can’t determine the type of patient it’s going to be effective for.
For an illness like acute myeloid leukemia (AML), which is very diverse in its manifestation, quickly evaluating and confirming which treatment to prescribe to which patient is crucial.
AML is a very aggressive blood cancer. Close to 20,000 people are diagnosed with AML every year in the United States alone and the vast majority of these individuals are diagnosed later in life. Sadly, less than 10% of people who are diagnosed after age 60 live more than five years from the time of diagnosis.
What makes AML treatment so complicated? Therapies usually work to target the molecular vulnerabilities of cancer, but since AML has different molecular features depending on its manifestation, its very difficult to distinguish which treatments will actually be effective for which patients. There are currently some treatments available for some subsets of AML, but even for those who are able to utilize one of these treatments, relapses are far too common.
“Researchers have identified at least 11 genetic classes of AML and uncovered thousands of different mutations among patients’ cancer cells.”
We need more research, and we need it quickly. We need new treatment options for the more rare subsets of AML, and we need to better evaluate which treatment is going to be most effective for which type of AML patient.
There’s finally a way to speed up the research process for this disease.
The Database
Brian Druker and Jeffrey Tyner from Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) have been leading a research team for years, working to establish an accessible database which documents the different variations of AML. They now have data documented on the specific molecular makeup of the tumors of 562 patients. With this information, researchers have been able to evaluate 122 different therapies and how the various types of cells respond to them.
“Researchers can now find out in minutes what kinds of targeted therapies are most effective against specific subsets of AML cells.”
The database is easily accessible online, and could revolutionize the way we do research.
Progress for AML
With this new database, researchers will be able to evaluate not only the efficacy of their drug, but the efficacy of it in different types of AML. We’ll be able to rule out different medications faster, and for the treatments which prove to be most promising, we’ll hopefully be able to speed up the initiation of clinical trials.
So far, the OHSU research team has found three different genetic mutations of AML which may respond to Ibrutinib. They’ve also been able to distinguish that for those patients who have all three of those specific genetic mutations, Ibrutinib will most likely have a higher level of efficacy. This treatment is currently approved for some types of blood cancers, but not AML.
Not only are researchers now able to see which drugs work for which mutations, they can better understand the reason why they work or don’t work. That means quicker development for clinical trials on a drug that proves efficacious, and also improved further research on additional treatments which may react in a similar way.
You can read more about this new database and the way it could improve research here.
