Rna Diagnostics announces the study, Tumor RNA disruption predicts survival benefit from breast cancer chemotherapy, recently published in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment.
Rna Diagnostics is a Canadian cancer diagnostics company developing diagnostic tools to improve chemotherapy management. The company’s first product, RDA, evaluates early in a woman’s breast cancer treatment how well she is responding to chemotherapy.
In this multi-centre neoadjuvant trial (NCIC-CTG MA.22) of patients with locally advanced breast cancer, patients were treated with 6 to 8 cycles of epirubicin/docetaxel chemotherapy. The purpose of the study was to assess the relationship between mid-treatment tumor RNA disruption and both pathological complete response (pCR) post-treatment and, subsequently, disease-free survival up to 108 months post-treatment. To meet this objective, Rna Diagnostics developed the RDA to quantify tumour RNA disruption and stratify patients into 3 response zones of clinical importance. The peer-reviewed study revealed that RDA was superior to pCR, the current gold standard for predicting survival, supporting the prospect of RDA use in response-guided chemotherapy.
Co-author and Chair of the Rna Diagnostics Clinical Advisory Board, Dr. Maureen E. Trudeau stated, “The RDA score could help us to predict which patients’ tumours will or will not respond to chemotherapy early in the course of treatment. This will allow a rapid change in treatment for those with unresponsive tumours.”
Dr Trudeau is Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, Medical Oncologist at the Odette Cancer Centre, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, and co-chair of the breast cancer disease site group of Cancer Care Ontario.
“I’m particularly excited because the study also shows enhanced survival in patients with a high RDA score amongst a type of breast cancer (hormone receptor positive) traditionally not considered responsive to chemotherapy,” said Dr. Amadeo Parissenti, co-author and Chief Scientific Officer of Rna Diagnostics.
Dr. Parissenti is Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Laurentian University and Cancer Research Chair, Regional Cancer Program, Sudbury Hospital, Dr. Amadeo Parissenti is an authority on drug resistance in breast cancer and conducts translational research studies in association with the National Cancer Institute of Canada and other major clinical trial Groups.
The study can be found here.
About Rna Diagnostics Inc.
Rna Diagnostics, a Canadian cancer diagnostics company, is developing diagnostic tools to improve chemotherapy management. The company’s first product, RNA Disruption Assay™ (RDA™), evaluates early in a woman’s breast cancer treatment how well she is responding to chemotherapy. If the chemotherapy is not working effectively she can be switched quickly to other treatments, avoiding the harmful side-effects of ineffective chemotherapy, thereby improving her outcome. Rna Diagnostics is conducting clinical trials and collaborations with leaders in breast cancer research in Germany, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, United States, United Kingdom and Canada.
For more information on Rna Diagnostics, please contactjconnolly@rnadiagnostics.com
www.rnadiagnostics.com