Sheba Medical Center, Research Partners Conduct Cancer Therapy Trial Using DNA Alterations

Israel’s largest hospital, the Sheba Medical Center at Tel HaShomer, and six other research partners have succeeded in conducting a clinical trial that results in the improvement of personalized therapies for advanced cancer patients.

The WIN Consortium’s WINTHER clinical trial reveals that a combination of RNA profiling and DNA alterations testing can help match more patients suffering from cancer with personalized treatments. This is done through the application of transcriptomics based upon a greater expression of RNA in tumors than normal tissues.

“This international collaboration has conquered a new medical frontier in the realm of precision oncology,” Professor Raanan Berger, M.D., Ph.D., Director of Oncology at Sheba Medical Center said in a statement. “The success of this clinical trial’s application of RNA to create personalized treatments for a greater number of advanced cancer patients shows great promise for the future.”

The trial treated 107 advanced cancer patients who had already undergone heavy treatments, with about 25 percent having received at least five previous types of therapies. During the trial, 69 patients were administered DNA mutation profiling treatment, and 38 patients received treatments based on RNA profiling. At the conclusion of the trial, it was revealed that 35 percent of the patients were successfully matched with personalized therapy.

The researchers who contributed to the WINTHER trial also include Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology – VHIO (Spain); Gustave Roussy (France) (Jean-Charles Soria); Centre Léon Bérard (France) (Pierre Saintigny); Segal Cancer Centre, McGill University (Canada) (Wilson H. Miller); UT MD Anderson Cancer Center (USA) (Jordi Rodon and Apostolia-Maria Tsimberidou); and University of California San Diego, Moores Cancer Center (USA) (Razelle Kurzrock).