Barcelona, 5 April 2011 - Dr Rafael Rosell presented the recent discovery of the AEG1/BRCA1 two-gene predictive model at the 102nd American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting this month.
Recent analyses by Dr Rosell’s team of a large series of genes using NanoString Technology led to the discovery that expression levels of the AEG-1 gene (astrocye elevated gene 1, or metadherin) strongly predict response to the drug erlotinib, a finding with significant implications for personalized cancer treatment selection. The analysis, which was performed in the Pangaea Biotech laboratory in Barcelona, used samples from 43 non-small-cell lung cancer patients with mutations in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene and who were undergoing treatment with erlotinib. It transpired that AEG-1 was the gene which best predicted progression-free survival (PFS) in the patients studied: for those with low AEG-1 expression, PFS was 27 months, compared to 12 months for those who had high expression of this gene.
Dr Rosell, who has previously published seminal papers on the role of expression of the BRCA1 gene, highlighted that the combination of expression levels of these two genes could be used to classify patients either as low risk - with the possibility of long-lasting response to an oral EGFR inhibitor - or high risk, for whom early progression was likely and alternative treatment strategies could then be sought.
Dr Rafael Rosell is Head of Medical Oncology at the Oncology Institute Dr. Rosell, Head of Medical Oncology at the Catalan Institute of Oncology, Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol, Chairman and Founder of Pangaea Biotech S.L., and President and Founder of the Spanish Lung Cancer Group.
The AACR Annual Meeting is attended by leading international oncology researchers from a range of cancer fields, and this year was held from 2-6 April in Orlando, Florida.
AACR official site