A four-year study indicates that bioTheranostics’ CancerTYPE ID molecular test successfully predicted the site of origin in patients diagnosed with cancer of unknown primary (CUP), helping to direct site-specific treatment and improve survival. The prospective evaluation of molecular tumor profiling in the clinical management of CUP, “Molecular Gene Expression Profiling to Predict the Tissue of Origin and Direct Site-Specific Therapy in Patients with Carcinoma of Unknown Primary Site: A Prospective Trial of the Sarah Cannon Research Institute,” was published online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
In the study, researchers assessed biopsy specimens from previously untreated CUP patients using CancerTYPE ID, a 92-gene real-time RT-PCR assay. Results show that the site of origin was predicted in 98% of the assays performed. Patients for whom a primary cancer site was predicted and who were treatment candidates were assigned standard site-specific first-line therapy. In 194 patients who received CancerTYPE ID-directed, site-specific treatment, median survival was 12.5 months, versus historical SCRI CUP trials of 9.1 months for patients receiving empiric therapy. When CancerTYPE ID predicted tumor types that were clinically more responsive, the median survival was significantly improved compared with predictions of more resistant tumors (13.4 months versus 7.6 months, p=.04). This provided additional validation of the accuracy of the assay while highlighting the increasing clinical utility of CancerTYPE ID as more site-directed therapies are becoming available. Read the study abstract.
