A Stony Brook-based company says it has developed a system that in a clinical trial correlated more closely to identifying prostate cancer’s development and defeat than PSA tests.
LineaRx said its system in a Phase II trial seeking recurrent prostate cancer demonstrates “the number of circulating tumor cells correlates more directly” with the status of the disease.
LineaRx, Inc., a subsidiary of Applied DNA Sciences, Inc, said its platform demonstrated “superior correlation over Prostate Specific Antigen or PSA” in an ongoing Phase II trial in recurrent prostate cancer.
"The concentration of invasive circulating tumor cells or iCTCs identified per milliliter of whole blood correlated more directly with disease status than PSA levels," the company said.
The volume of these cells was identified utilizing LineaRx’s technology platform recently acquired from Vitatex Inc.
LineaRx is collaborating with Tyme Technologies, which reported the results of the study, tracking 23 patients, at the Congress of the European Society of Medical Oncology.
Dr. Wen-Tien Chen, principal investigator of CTC Programs at LineaRx, said this could provide for “earlier and more accurate identification of prostate cancer.”
He said studies have shown that the concentration of iCTCs in blood correlates with “disease status” across other tumors, including metastatic sarcoma, pancreatic, ovarian, breast, lung and colorectal cancers.
“We believe our proprietary platform can help diagnose these difficult cancers earlier and with superior predictive capability,” Chen added.
PSA has “historically been the recognized biomarker for prostate cancer,” but LineaRx said many studies indicate it is an “inadequate biomarker, since it may become elevated in patients with no apparent disease, or less serious pathology than cancer.”
Biomarker research has centered on disease diagnostics, rather than prognosis and prediction, “which could work toward disease prevention—an important focus moving forward,” the company added.
Chen said "reductions in iCTC number may be a more informative indicator of benefit than changes in PSA.”
The LineaRx platform may be able to serve as a stand-alone device or “to increase the sensitivity of approved diagnostics,” the company said.
James Hayward, CEO of LineaRx and Applied DNA, said the study shows that "iCTCs may be used to accurately follow therapy success in this very prevalent cancer, while also providing new tools for cell and gene therapy design and production.”