DOI: 10.1097/01.COT.0000291274.86033.06

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Issn Print: 0276-2234

Publication Date: 2005/11/10


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NCI Researcher: Ideal Targeted-Therapy Biomarker May Never Be Found

Robert H. Carlson

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DALLAS—A highly accurate biomarker may be the Holy Grail for predicting treatment efficacy of targeted anticancer therapies, but a single marker will probably never be that reliable, says a senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program.
“It is hard to envision that one particular marker can perfectly correlate to whether a patient will or will not benefit from the treatment,” said Janet E. Dancey, MD, of the NCI's Investigational Drug Branch. “The marker not only has to be a correlation with the activity of the drug in that particular tumor, it also has to do with any patient-related modifications in maintaining that correlation.”
In remarks made here at the Southwest Oncology Group's Fall Group Meeting, Dr. Dancey explained that a marker might predict that a drug is active in a tumor, but other factors could prevent the drug from entering a tumor cell or prevent it from reaching an effective level.
And as she elaborated on after her presentation, perhaps more useful would be a multiple composite of markers to develop a profile for selecting the right treatment for the right patient.
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