CANCER DIAGNOSTICS

Companion Diagnostics

Many cancer drugs target specific markers on the surface of the tumor.  If the tumor does not express the marker, then the patient is not expected to respond to the drug.  The test to determine effective use of the therapeutic drug for a patient is called companion diagnostics.

LifeTracDx® provides a simple blood test for companion diagnostics.

 

A blood test for companion diagnostics is simpler and cheaper than tissue biopsy.  CAMLs contain tumor markers. 

CAMLs are ideal for companion diagnostics because they are found in

  • All cancers

  • All stages of cancer

More than 30 drug targets have been developed by CreatvBio.  Some examples are:

  • PD-L1, PD-L2

  • HER2

  • CCR5

  • CXCR4

  • VEGFR1-2

 

An example of companion diagnostic data for immunotherapy for lung cancer shows that the LifeTracDx® blood test can provide important information whether the patient will benefit from immunotherapy.

This data was taken after chemoradiation therapy (CRT).  The data shows that CRT can change the PD-L1 expression of the tumor.

PD-L1 expression can be changed under a variety of situations. Another example is shown in Sequential Monitoring of Therapy below.

Prognosis - Provide Aggressiveness of Cancer

The LifeTracDx® blood test can also provide information about the aggressiveness of the cancer independent of imaging. The analysis requires high quality images of the cancer associated cells.

The features indicating aggressive cancers are listed below.  The features are independent of type of cancer or stage.

 

Major Features That Predict Poor Prognosis:

  • CTC number > 5
  • CTC in mitosis
  • CAML size ≥ 50 µm
  • Micronuclei (MN) in CAMLs
  • Extracellular Vesicles (EVs) budding from CAMLs
  • Debris in CAMLs
  • Micronuclei (MN) in CAMLs
  • DAPI size of CAMLs >465 µm2
  • CTC clusters
  • Presence of other types of tumor-macrophage hybrid cells (TMHCs) besides CAMLs

Patients have longer PFS and OS even if they have CTCs and CAMLs, but not those 10 features.

Genomic Analysis

CAMLs provide whole DNA for sequencing, not fragmented ctDNA in the blood.

 

CAMLs become engorged after engulfing many tumor cells.  They contain much tumor DNA. This is an example of sequencing results of

  • tumor tissue

  • CAMLs

  • cfDNA

  • The number of mutations detected in CAMLs are much more than those found in tumor tissue and cfDNA in blood.