Blood Test That Measures Metabolites Can Indicate Drug Potency, Researchers Claim

A new study has revealed that a new blood test can detect changes in the level of metabolites in the blood that can identify whether or not a new "smart" cancer drug is effective or not.

According to Mail Online, researchers from The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in London examined 180 blood markers for their study. Chemical markers in the blood were used to determine if a drug is actually effective to cure a disease it's intended for. The level of chemicals, known as "metabolites", was checked in 41 trial patients with advanced stages of cancer.

The mixture of markers accurately showed how well cancers were responding to the new experimental drug, pictilisib. This drug specifically targets a molecular pathway known as P13 kinase that is the one that's causing the problem in a lot of different cancers. As these cancers with defective pathways grow, they may be able to cause the level of metabolites in the bloodstream to significantly decrease. However, an increase in metabolites indicates that the drug is working, Irish Examiner reported.

In an article by Tech Times, it said that the present research is the very first to show that the level of metabolites can be used as a cancer therapy marker both in mice study and clinical trials. When researchers were studying mice, they were able to raise the presence of 26 metabolites in the mice's bloodstream by giving pictilisib. This meant that the drug reverses cancer in the metabolites of the mice.

However, during the clinical trials, 22 out of 26 metabolites were increased as a response to the treatment. The change in the metabolite level was noticed after a dose of the drug was given. A resultant decrease, however, was noted when the drug was stopped. This means that the change in metabolite level is secondary to the introduction of pictilisib.

Dr. Florence Raynaud, from The Institute of Cancer Research in London said: "We have shown that assessing a patient's metabolites can be a quick and simple way of assessing whether a cancer drug is specifically hitting its intended target in the body."

She also said that their study is an important step in the development of new accurate cancer therapies, and is the first to show that blood metabolites have real potential to monitor the effects of novel agents.

"Our method was developed specifically for pictilisib but could now be adapted to discover metabolite markers for other cancer treatments," she continued.