DNA testing could help identify me who will benefit from targeted nuclear medicine for the treatment of prostate cancer, researchers report today.
The tests identify men with faulty DNA repair genes in their tumours, according to the study at the Institute of Cancer Research, London, UK.
The research found the presence of these genes is strongly correlated with the presence of prostate-specific membrane antigen on the surface of cancer cells.
This antigen is the target for targeted nuclear medicine.
The findings come from laboratory research and are yet to be used clinically. The researchers say the DNA test could be used as a first stage screening process to identify patients who will benefit from the treatment.
The findings are published in the journal European Urology today.
Researcher Professor Johann de Bono said: “Our new study helps to explain why some patients respond to search-and-destroy treatments and others don’t. Understanding the biology of response to these new treatments is critical to getting them into use in the clinic as soon as possible.
“We found that testing for DNA repair defects was a good indication of which tumours had high levels of PSMA – and so would be expected to respond to these PSMA-targeted therapies.
"We will need to further assess the use of DNA tests to target these treatments effectively in routine care, but we can already now start to take into account DNA repair faults in our design of clinical trials.”
European Urology 23 July 2019
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