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Sidra Medical Centre’s research advisor David Kerr has led a team of clinical oncologists to develop a new tool, Oncotype DX, to independently predict individual recurrence risk in stage II colon cancer patients following surgery or chemotherapy.

peaking to Gulf Times yesterday, Kerr said a landmark validation trial has been conducted on 3,500 cancer patients at his centre within the Oxford University and two major cancer centres in the US namely the Cleveland clinic and Mayo clinic.

“These clinical results represent an important advancement in bringing personalised medicine to the tens of thousands of people who suffer from stage II colon cancer as the availability of precise markers to determine likelihood of recurrence risk are limited in today’s clinical setting,” he said. Kerr is also a professor of cancer medicine at the University of Oxford.

Kerr along with professor of medical statistics at the University of Birmingham, Richard Gray, and professor of pathology and tumor biology at the University of Leeds, Philip Quirke, are the principal investigators of the validation study.
“With these results we have a validated multi-gene test to predict colon cancer recurrence that, when available, will enable physicians to better select patients for aggressive treatment beyond surgery,” he mentioned.

Kerr hinted that the tool kit hopefully will be available worldwide for cancer patients’ use by early next year.

He mentioned that on May 30 in Orlando, Florida, he and his team will be presenting the tool to the 30,000-strong members of the American Society of Clinical Oncologists during its annual meeting.

“A total of 4,000 scientists submitted different works and only a handful were being prepared for presentations during this biggest cancer meeting in the world.

I think this is a great sign for Qatar’s science as someone from Sidra in Qatar will be taking the world stage,” he said.
More than 150,000 people worldwide are diagnosed with stage II colon cancer (also known as Dukes’ Stage B) each year, including 30,000 to 40,000 in the US alone.
Kerr described the tool as a major achievement, which, he said, had drawn international media attention since the announcement of the positive trial results.
“We had a press conference via telephone to over 100 US media outlets including Wall Street Journal and Time magazine, about the new cancer test.
He explained that the large trial had made it possible for him and his team to come up with a signature that tells which colon cancers are more likely to come back.
“The problem with cancer is that, during treatment sometimes a tiny seed of cancer can escape and hide in the body, so even if the surgeon thinks he has removed all the cancers, this piece of cancer might come back and once this occur, it is very difficult to treat,” he explained.
Kerr said the signature allows to predict patients having higher chance of cancer recurrence, and if one is found to have a higher chance of recurrence, then such patients will not be treated with chemotherapy.
“Chemotherapy are difficult treatment, very complicated and with many side effects.

So, this new test will make it possible for us to provide the right treatment to patients that will benefit more,” he said adding “we consider this new test as step forward in empowering patients in the decision about whether they should have chemotherapy or not.”
“The problem with chemotherapy is that it only works in a small number of patients while about 25% have very difficult side effects,” he observed.
“We really want to put Qatar on the international map in the field of cancer research,” he said.
Kerr mentioned that Genomic Health Incorporation - a partner company will be responsible for packaging and commercialisation of the tool kits early next year.