New method for the prediction of response to treatment in clinical trials

Source: immedicohospitalario.es

Researchers from the universities of Vienna and Lancaster have developed a method aimed at improving precision medicine already during the clinical development phase of the drug. Based on the statistical processing of data related to biomarkers obtained by genomic sequencing and molecular imaging, it enables the identification of patients who will respond better to therapy without a greater risk of adverse effects.

Nicolás Ballarini, director of the study, states that the method can be used, for example, in oncology to predict whether a new therapy will prolong survival. The reliability of the technique grows with the amount of data available from the patient, the researcher continues, this being the reason why demographic data such as age or sex are also included in the calculation. The method has been validated in two sets of data related to patients with Alzheimer’s and prostate cancer.

Ballarini believes it is important to indicate that the subgroups identified should be confirmed by the implementation of clinical enrichment trials, defined as those that prospectively use a given trait of patients that is considered to have a high probability of being modified by the treatment. .

From Distefar we echo the advances that are achieved for the conduct of clinical trials.