CRM & CIC Launches First Precision Medicine Clinical Trial in Malaysia for More Effective Breast Cancer Treatment
Professor Datin Paduka Dr Teo Soo Hwang, OBE, Chief Scientific Officer at Cancer Research Malaysia
Cancer Research Malaysia (CRM) and Clinical Investigation Centre (CIC) of University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) launched a clinical trial called AUROR in a study with National University Hospital Singapore, to test if checkpoint immunotherapy is effective for breast cancer treatment in Asian patients.
Cancer cells produce invisibility cloaks to hide from our immune system’s ‘checkpoints’, allowing them to grow and spread. Checkpoint immunotherapy activates the immune system to recognise cancer cells that should be killed, and has already resulted in long-term remission for melanoma, lung, and other cancers, but its effect in breast cancer is still understudied.
“Checkpoint immunotherapy has so far shown to be promising to treat an aggressive form of breast cancer, called triple negative breast cancer, but it is clear that not all patients benefit from this type of treatment,” said Professor Datin Paduka Dr Teo Soo Hwang, OBE, Chief Scientific Officer at Cancer Research Malaysia, who led the genomics study.
Read Also: Children with Dyslexia Show Stronger Emotional Responses
[the_ad id=”10542″]
“Through research at Cancer Research Malaysia, we now know that more than half of Asian women inherit a genetic variant (called APOBEC3B), and in these women, breast cancers tend to have a lot of damaged DNA, which suggests that their tumours are more likely to respond to checkpoint immunotherapy.”
“Importantly, this genetic variant is four times more common in Asians compared to Caucasians. We are now launching this unique clinical trial to test whether checkpoint immunotherapy can indeed improve the treatment response for breast cancer patients with this genetic variant, and this could lead to a new treatment regimen for Asian breast cancer patients.”
The success of this clinical trial could result in a better standard of care and personalised medicine for Asian breast cancer patients.
[the_ad id=”10542″]
“In this era of precision medicine, we now know that understanding which patients will respond to which treatments is critical in our effort to save lives. Previously, much of the knowledge about precision medicine has been built based on research on Caucasian patients, and it is a milestone for us in Malaysia to be launching this first clinical trial that is based on genetic markers which are common in Asian women, made possible by research conducted here in Malaysia,” said Associate Professor Dr Ho Gwo Fuang, Consultant Oncologist and Principal Investigator of the AUROR Trial at UMMC.
“This is the first clinical trial launched in Asia to test a feature of breast cancers using a genetic marker that is more common in Asians. We are working on more such clinical trials and hope that more Malaysians will support the work we do; as a non-profit, we depend on contributions to fund our lifesaving research,” added Dr Pan Jia Wern, co-lead of the genomics programme at Cancer Research Malaysia.
Read Also: Hormone Found to Switch Off Hunger Could Help Tackle Obesity
[the_ad id=”10542″]
