A study published in Nature’s new open-access journal NPJ Precision Oncology reports that researchers tested the prognostic value of a clonal gene signature from malignant pleural mesothelioma tumor samples and found them to have high prognostic values and reproducibility. The results suggest that the information will help physicians treating patients with the rare form of cancer will be able to better predict risk and patient survival.
Researchers Test Mesothelioma Tumor Cells Against Previous Lung Tissue Results
The mesothelioma study was conducted by a group of collaborative researchers from Baylor College of Medicine’s Department of Medicine, its Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center Mesothelioma Treatment Center, the David J. Sugarbaker Division of Thoracic Surgery at Baylor, and the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research at Baylor.
Using a clonal gene signature developed from a recent study in lung adenocarcinoma, the researchers aimed to identify multi-regional data from malignant pleural mesothelioma patients to see whether they could obtain similar results. They generated a dataset from 78 tumor samples obtained from 26 malignant pleural mesothelioma patients, each with one sample collected from three separate regions of the tumor. They then selected 29 prognostic genes that displayed high variability across different tumors to demonstrate their prognostic values.
Findings Will Assist with Assessing Mesothelioma Prognosis
The researchers found that there were significant similarities between lung cancer and malignant pleural mesothelioma and that the clonal signatures identified in the studies provided helpful prognostic stratification that showed the importance of the data that they had collected.
Writing on their findings and its impact, the researchers wrote, “Overall, this study improved our understanding of factors that determine clonal variables in both LUAD and MPM cancer evolution and provided a clonal gene signature with valuable risk prediction in patient survival.”
If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma, you understand the importance of this type of groundbreaking research. For information on accessing innovative treatment and other resources, contact the Patient Advocates at Mesothelioma.net today at 1-800-692-8608.
