Platin-R

Platin derivatives such as cisplatin, carboplatin or oxaliplatin play important roles in the treatment of malignant diseases such as lung or ovarian cancer. However, not all patients will benefit from such a therapy. Therefore, a platin biomarker signature would address a high unmet medical need to identify patients who will not benefit and subsequently toxic side effects of an inefficacious treatment could be avoided.

Platin-resistant ovarian cancer cells were established to analyze gene expression profiles in comparison to non-resistant cancer cells. 1060 mRNAs were identified which potentially mediate platin resistance. To identify clinically relevant platin-specific biomarkers we used the Kaplan-Meier plotter for ovarian and lung cancer (www.kmplot.com) to analyze the impact of individual genes on the clinical outcome of ovarian and lung cancer patients.

Therawis Diagnostics has identified genes mediating platin resistance and is developing a multigene signature to predict response to platinum containing chemotherapies. A clinical validation in a retrospective study using tumor specimens will be performed.

The graph highlights one of these genes in the platin resistance signature identifying non-small lung cancer patients with good (black line) vs poor survival (red line).