Hospital & Healthcare Management/ Healthcare Research Inside PITTSBURGH, Jan. 19, 2011— Precision Therapeutics, Inc. will present pancreatic cancer data based on Precision’s ChemoFx® in-vitro chemosensitivity test at the 2011 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) GI Symposium, January 20-22 in San Francisco, California.
The two studies accepted by the ASCO GI are titled, InVitro Sensitivity of 5 FU and Gemcitabine in Pancreatic Cancer and Pattern of In Vitro Chemotherapy Response in Pancreatic Cancer and its Clinical Implication and will be presented by Drs. Jan Franko, Malcolm Bilimoria, Sricharan Chalikonda and David Iannitti. The data demonstrate high (76%) in-vitro chemoresistance to traditional chemotherapy (gemcitabine or 5-FU as single agents); however, tumors resistant to one drug were not necessarily resistant to the other. Moreover, 22% of the tumors found to be resistant to traditional single agent chemotherapy were observed to be sensitive to gemcitabine and 5-FU as a combination.
"Traditionally, chemotherapy is selected based on the histology and site of tumor origin, but is not patient-specific. The poor efficacy of this empirical approach is seen in daily clinical practice," says Dr. Jan Franko, lead investigator on the studies. "Our work supports the notion that the selection of chemotherapeutic agents may need to be based on the unique characteristics of a tumor sampled from patients. ChemoFx® may assist with this by providing information on which drugs may actually be active in individual patients."
Pancreatic cancer kills an estimated 37,000 Americans per year and while recent studies on drug combinations have been promising, improvements in survival have been minimal over the past twenty-five years.
About Precision Therapeutics:
Precision Therapeutics, a life-science company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is committed to improving outcomes of cancer patients. As leaders in the science of individualizing cancer therapy through the use of a proprietary and unique live-tissue platform, Precision develops novel markers to help guide treatment decisions based on the biological processes of each individual’s cancer.
Precision’s state of the art bioinformatics combined with the analysis of the live molecular, proteomic and genomic activity of each patient’s cancer offer an innovative foundation for further development and commercialization of novel predictive markers for cancer therapy.
About ChemoFx® :
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.
For more information :
www.precisiontherapeutics.com or www.chemofx.com
SOURCE :
Precision Therapeutics
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