Cancer patients could benefit from world class web tool

Research using a first class web tool which is being carried out with help from doctors and patients at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, has led to cancer patients on a clinical trial receiving personalised medicine according to the molecular profile or “fingerprint” of their tumour.

The Molecular Tumour Board Portal (MTBP) uses futuristic AI and machine learning, along with leading human expertise, to pool together complex clinical and genetic data taken from patients.

Clinicians can use the web tool to easily analyse the data – and compare it with the results of other databases across Europe – to work out the optimum personalised care for patients.

All the data collected so far has come from patients who are signed up to the European-wide ‘Basket of Baskets’ trial.

The trial is being run by seven specialised cancer centres across Europe, known collectively as Cancer Core Europe. The Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre comprises Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Cancer Research UK and the University of Cambridge.

The Basket of Baskets trial is looking at whether patients with different types of cancer could, in the future, be treated with the same targeted therapies because they share a common genetic mutation that is causing their cancer.

The amount of data collected from cancer patients is increasing exponentially along with our understanding of which biomarkers determine how the disease will progress and which predict how tumours will respond to different treatments.

The MTBP system has been set up by Cancer Core Europe to automatically collect data extracted from biopsies and blood samples taken from the 500 patients enrolled on  the trial so far. It then interprets these large volumes of patient data, extracting the most clinically relevant information to produce an interactive data-rich online report.

Every patient report generated from the online clinical decision support system is discussed during one of the weekly web-based multi-disciplinary team meetings where members from all seven centres evaluate the results and agree on each patient’s personalised treatment plan.

For more information visit: CUH News

Published July 28, 2020