Researchers develop mathematical measures to better personalize therapy for prostate cancer

Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center have unveiled three mathematical biomarkers that could revolutionize the way doctors personalize prostate cancer treatment. These innovative measures, derived from routine prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood tests, have the potential to predict treatment outcomes early in the course of therapy. This groundbreaking work, co-led by Alexander R. Anderson, Ph.D., and Philip Maini, Ph.D., was recently published in JAMA Oncology.

Traditional cancer treatments typically involve administering continuous high doses of anticancer drugs, which can lead to treatment resistance. To combat this, adaptive therapy allows treatment to be paused when the cancer is under control and restarted when signs of growth return. However, determining which patients are most likely to benefit from this approach has been challenging until now.

The Moffitt team's research focused on developing these mathematical biomarkers using early PSA measurements collected during the first treatment cycle. These biomarkers provide insights into how a patient's unique tumor behaves and may respond to treatment in the future. By analyzing data from 53 prostate cancer patients enrolled in two independent clinical studies, the researchers found that the new AT Score strongly predicted how long patients remained free from disease progression.

The team's findings show that higher AT Scores and longer predicted progression times were associated with improved outcomes, surpassing conventional PSA measures. This method has the potential to serve as a decision-support tool for doctors, enabling them to match patients to the most effective treatment strategy based on their individual tumor behavior.

While further studies are needed to validate these findings, the researchers believe that these biomarkers could ultimately improve patient care by providing ongoing, updated predictions of tumor behavior throughout treatment.