Technology
Cytotoxic anti-cancer agents continue to remain the mainstay of most anti-cancer treatment regimens despite the advent and widening scope of targeted anti-cancer drugs. Unlike targeted anti-cancer drugs, the selection of chemotherapy agents is not based on any biomarker or molecular profiling.
The effectiveness of treatment including treatment failure is determined retrospectively, based on detection of disease progression via clinical follow-up and radiological imaging. There are presently no means to prospectively identify patients in whom the cancer already harbours or has acquired resistance to chemotherapy agents, which is associated with a risk of treatment failure and disease progression. While treatment failure leads to disease progression, it also adds to the burden of accumulated toxicities from successive inefficient treatments.
It is hence imperative to have a safe, reliable and robust test, which can be relied upon to determine any instance of inherent or incipient chemo-resistance in the tumor (cells) which can proactively drive enhanced surveillance for timely detection of treatment failure or early signs of disease progression, which in turn can enable timely therapeutic countermeasures. Such a strategy can lead to more effective treatment management decisions, which reduce the risks of treatment failure and risks of toxicities associated with treatment failure.
About Chemo-scale™
Chemo-scale™ is an advanced non-invasive test which provides therapeutically relevant information and is based on a safe, simple, and quick blood draw. Chemo-scale™ investigates in vitro chemo-resistance in Circulating Tumor Associated Cells (CTACs) isolated from the blood sample. CTACs include cancer cells that escape from the tumor and enter the bloodstream (circulating tumor cells, CTCs) as well as tumor-associated cells (TACs) which contribute to tumor survival and growth. Chemo-resistance in CTACs may be associated with a risk of treatment failure and disease progression.
Reliable Technology
Chemo-scale™ evaluates in vitro chemo-resistance in CTCs, which are known to be present (and detected ubiquitously) in almost all solid organ tumors, irrespective of age, gender, primary organ, subtype, grade, stage or treatment status. Since CTACs include CTCs as well as TACs which play an important role in sustaining a malignancy, determination of chemo-resistance in CTACs has high correlation with tumor tissues. Our prior acclaimed clinical studies have shown that CTAC based determination of in vitro chemo-resistance has high concordance with tumor tissue-based determinations as well as with clinical outcomes.
Clinical Performance
The clinical utility of in vitro chemo-resistance profiling of CTACs for informing selection of patient-specific, safe and efficacious anti-cancer treatment regimens has been demonstrated in prior clinical studies and case reports.
Chemo-scale™ is available for all solid organ cancers.
Chemo-scale™ can provide therapeutically relevant insight into the chemo-resistance profile of the tumor, which can assist physicians to make life-saving clinical management decisions.