Samsung Medical Center, Customized treatment era for gynecological cancer

The joint research team of Professor JeongWon Lee of Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Samsung Medical Center, Professor DoHyun Nam of Department of Neurosurgery in Samsung Medical Center and Professor JinGu Lee in Ajou University College of Medicine established the patient-derived cell library based on 139 cancer tissues taken from gynecological cancer patients and studied customized treatment predictive factors through both genome analysis and drug reactivity investigation. CancerSCAN, which is the next generation’s genome analysis system developed by Samsung Medical Center, was used. CancerSCAN can find out whether there is a mutant known as a target of customized anticancer agent by analyzing hundreds of genes at a time. Also, the research team analyzed the efficacy by applying 37 molecule-targeted drugs to the patient-derived cells. As the result, the mutation status of P53 which is known to be a tumor suppressor gene is the most important factor for treatment response of the recently available targeted anticancer agent, PARP inhibitor. PARP inhibitor is one of the most notable new drugs that its effect on survival rate improvement of ovary cancer patients has been proved in multiple studies. For cases with P53 mutation, high resistance was seen in most of currently studied candidate drugs, but high sensitivity was only seen in PARP inhibitor. It means that cancer responds well selectively to the corresponding agent. *Moreover, it was additionally studied that PARP inhibitor was not effective for all ovary cancer patients. Thus, the research team found that ID2 protein was an important factor related to drug resistance. Meanwhile, this study was published in the recent issue of international academic journal <Genome Biology>.