1... A working tumor chemosensitivity assay (TCA) could be of immense benefit to the pharmaceutical industry, oncologists and their patients (Cree and Kurbacher, 1997)

2... ATP-TCA can be used to select patients who might benefit from specific chemotherapeutic agents alone or in combination (Cree et al, 1999)

Literature...

Continued...

Results of Chemotherapy guided by the ATP-TCA

1... Retrospective clinical correlation in breast carcinoma (Cree et al, 1996): 97% assay evaluability, 76% accuracy, 27% improvement in clinical response rate

2... A greater benefit with regard to both ORR and PFS in platinum refractory patients (Kurbacher et al, 1998): Overall survival, 97 weeks / 69 weeks; Response rate, 64% / 37%

TWO GREAT BENEFITS OBTAINED FROM CHEMOSENSITIVITY TESTING

• Exclusion of chemotherapeutic agents which are not likely to be effective, thereby avoidance of their potential toxicity

• Selection of chemotherapeutic agents with the greatest likelihood of clinical effectiveness for improved response rates and prolonged survival

Briefly...

• It is considered that defective apoptosis is a feature of malignant development

• Enhancing apoptosis in malignancies is to be aimed

• Detection of apoptosis-related proteins may be of importance in the prediction of response to chemo- or radio-therapy as well as of survival rates

• Chemosensitivity testing seems to provide more realistic approaches to the treatment of malignancies, letting oncologists design the chemotherapy regimen on the basis of patient-specificity