Noninvasive Assay Monitored Treatment Response in Patients With Metastatic Prostate Cancer, Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center Study

Deciding the ideal treatment for patients with metastatic prostate cancer that stops responding to initial therapy could be guided by certain analyses of cancer cells isolated from the patients' blood, according to data published in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. "The growth and survival of prostate cancer cells are very dependent on signals that the cancer cells receive through a protein called the androgen receptor," said Daniel A. Haber, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center in Boston and project leader of the Stand Up To Cancer Bioengineering and Clinical Applications of Circulating Tumor Cell Chip Dream Team. "Treatments that deprive the androgen receptor of its signals are initially highly effective in most patients with metastatic prostate cancer. Unfortunately, prostate cancer, like all cancers, undergoes evolution during therapy, and this can confer resistance to treatment."

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