Photo: CC0 via Pixabay
A DNA test that is already widely used can also be used to predict which patients with metastatic colorectal cancer will not benefit from life-prolonging chemotherapy, that with trifluridine/tipiracil (FTD/TPI). This is a medicine that is administered twice a day with a tablet.
Researchers at the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek hospital and the Netherlands Cancer Institute say they have now demonstrated this. “In the short term, the findings could already lead to a careful selection of patients with tumors that are refractory to this chemotherapy, so that they are spared unnecessary treatment with unpleasant side effects,” they explain.
These are people with a ‘KRAS G12 mutation’ in the DNA of the tumour. In these patients, one specific ‘letter’ has changed in the 3 billion of those code letters that the tumor DNA counts. The mutation is common in people with colon cancer. About a quarter of all patients have this mutation in the tumor’s DNA.
“The results of our study are so strong that we believe that an adjustment of the guideline is desirable to ensure that people with G12 mutations no longer receive this chemotherapy. You then save patients unnecessary suffering,” say the scientists. They hope that such a test method can also show the effect of other forms of chemotherapy in the future.
