Genetic Score Advances Personalized Treatment Strategies With Promising AML Drug
In the latest development in precision medicine approaches to treating pediatric leukemia, UF Health researchers have developed a genetic score to predict patient outcomes with a promising targeted drug treatment.
“This study advances our development of personalized treatment strategies for leukemia by uncovering how the drug attacks cancer cells differently based on a patient’s genetics,” said Jatinder Lamba, Ph.D., associate dean for research and graduate education and a professor in the UF College of Pharmacy, and lead author of the study, published in the American Association for Cancer Research journal Clinical Cancer Research. “By uncovering more about how genetic differences affect responses to novel treatments, we can target new drugs to the patients who are most likely to have the greatest clinical benefit.”
Acute myeloid leukemia, or AML, is the second most common form of childhood leukemia and is among the childhood cancers with the worst prognosis. While intensive chemotherapy and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation are still the mainstay of AML therapy, targeted therapies such as monoclonal antibodies and small-molecule inhibitors have emerged as promising approaches. One of these targeted therapies is an anti-leukemic drug called gemtuzumab ozogamicin, or GO.
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