Many people with stage II or III colon cancer receive additional, or adjuvant, chemotherapy following surgery. However, clinical trials have shown that this treatment doesn't improve the chances of survival for every patient. A study published July 25th, 2024 in Cell Reports Medicine identifies and validates a 10-gene biomarker that potentially predicts whether a stage II or III colon cancer patient will benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy.
A secondary finding from the study could also lead to further research and application. Researchers found that the gene signature could potentially also predict whether immunotherapy would help some patients – important because there are not yet clear guidelines on which colon cancer patients might benefit from immunotherapy. The study, led by Steven Chen, PhD, a researcher at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, lays the foundation for further research that could someday allow patients and their doctors to make personalized treatment decisions.
When you're talking about precision oncology, it means you use an individual patient's information -; here we are particularly talking about biomarkers from the patient -; to guide the doctor in making a clinical decision about what kind of treatment is best for the patient. Ideally, we only want to apply adjuvant chemotherapy to the patients who will benefit from it. For patients who don't respond, we still need to find other effective tr.