Matching targeted therapies to gene mutations improves survival
June 15, 2018
Medically Reviewed | Last reviewed by an MD Anderson Cancer Center medical professional on June 15, 2018
Matching targeted therapies to tumor-specific gene mutations across tumor types improved survival in patients with advanced cancer, compared to those receiving non-matched, standard-of-care treatment, MD Anderson trial data revealed.
Long-term data from the center¡¯s IMPACT trial, which compares treatments based on molecular profiling to standard-of-care treatments, showed the three-year, overall survival rate was 15 percent in those who underwent molecular profiling and 7 percent in those who did not. The 10-year survival rate was 6 percent in the molecular profiling group and 1 percent in the non-molecular profiling group.
This IMPACT study, which opened in 2007, is the first and largest precision medicine trial to look at survival.
¡°When IMPACT first opened, we tested for no more than one to two genes,¡± says . ¡°Now patients are being tested for hundreds of actionable genes.¡±
In the future, Tsimberidou says molecular profiling tumors will ideally become the standard of care at the time of diagnosis, especially for patients with hard-to-treat cancers.
A follow-up study, IMPACT2, is underway.
Read more about the IMPACT trial in the MD Anderson Newsroom.