Sividon Diagnostics GmbH
Chemotherapy for breast cancer: Taxane biomarkers successfully validated
Which chemotherapy is the right one for a patient? Is an add-on taxane really necessary? – Physicians have to repeatedly address these questions in the treatment of breast cancer. There is usually no clear answer. In cooperation with the Spanish Breast Cancer Research Group (GEICAM) molecular biomarkers for the use of taxanes have now been successfully validated for the first time. The study results were presented on September 30, 2013 at the European Cancer Congress of ESMO in Amsterdam. Chemotherapy is indispensable for many breast cancer patients. The physician can choose from a large number of different chemotherapeutic agents with different compositions and dosages. At present, the standard chemotherapy usually includes an ‘anthracycline’, also a ‘taxane’ is often used. ‘It is well known that patients benefit from the use of chemotherapeutically active substances to individually differing degrees’, explains Dr. Jan C. Brase, Research Group Leader at Sividon Diagnostics. ‘So far, however, there have been no reliable biomarkers that allow an individual assessment of different substance classes. Our research aims to identify biomarkers that enable individualised therapy. On this basis the treating physician can estimate who will benefit from a given treatment and who will not’. It was first determined in vitro which tumour cells responded to which chemotherapy. The focus was placed on the taxanes – a class of substances that frequently leads to nerve damage and muscle pain, in some cases also a long time after the end of treatment. At the same time, the activity of a large number of genes in the tumour tissue was measured. The biomarkers identified in these tests have now been successfully validated in the GEICAM/9906 study. Of the 555 patients who participated in this study, some of them had received a standard chemotherapy, while the others also received weekly paclitaxel. ‘The results show that patients with increased activity of the identified biomarkers benefit from the taxane therapy. In the other patients, no additional benefit of the therapy was observed’, explains Prof. Dr. Miguel Martin, Chairman of GEICAM. ‘These promising results now have to be confirmed in a further clinical study before it is clear whether the selected biomarkers could also be used in clinical routine’, says Prof. Martin. Company portrait Sividon Diagnostics GmbH was founded in July 2010 as a management buyout from Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics Products in Cologne, Germany. The company aims to sustainably increase the quality of therapy-accompanying diagnostics in oncology. EndoPredict(R), the first diagnostic test from Sividon, has been available since 2011. The breast cancer prognostic test helps in deciding for which patient a chemotherapy is indicated. For further information, visit www.sividon.com. End of Media Release Issuer: Sividon Diagnostics GmbH Key word(s): Health 30.09.2013 Dissemination of a Press Release, transmitted by DGAP – a company of EQS Group AG. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. DGAP’s Distribution Services include Regulatory Announcements, Financial/Corporate News and Press Releases. Media archive at www.dgap-medientreff.de and www.dgap.de |
232400 30.09.2013 |