Study identifies 10-gene biomarker predicting response to adjuvant chemotherapy in stage II and III colon cancerpatients.
A study published in Cell Reports Medicine has identified and validated a 10-gene biomarker that could predict whether stage II or III colon cancer patients will benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy.
The same gene signature could also potentially predict which patients would benefit from immunotherapy, offering hope for personalized treatment decisions.
Researchers aggregated gene expression profiles from 933 colon cancer patients to develop a practical 10-gene network for predicting responses to chemotherapy.
The gene signature was tested and found to be significantly better at predicting patient outcomes compared to random gene networks, with positive results for survival outcomes.
Further validation through prospective clinical trials is needed before this biomarker can be used clinically to help improve clinical decisions and ultimately benefit cancer patients.
A recent study published in Cell Reports Medicine has identified and validated a 10-gene biomarker that has the potential to predict whether stage II or III colon cancer patients will benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy. This discovery is significant as clinical trials have shown that not all patients with this type of cancer benefit from this additional treatment, making personalized treatment decisions important in improving patient outcomes. The study, led by researcher Steven Chen from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, also found that the gene signature could potentially predict which patients might benefit from immunotherapy, an area where guidelines are lacking.
The research team aggregated gene expression profiles from various sources to create a large dataset of 933 patients with stage 2 and 3 colon cancer. Using machine learning, they identified a 10-gene network that could accurately predict responses to chemotherapy. Testing the gene signature on 109 patients further verified its predictive power, showing that patients who were predicted to benefit from chemotherapy based on the gene signature had better survival outcomes. While the biomarker shows promise in guiding treatment decisions for colon cancer patients, further steps, including prospective clinical trials, are needed before it can be used clinically.
