The "try-everything tactic" appears to bring meaningful improvements in some cancer patients, but the approach comes with caveats, according to a Feb. 14 article in Nature.
Companies around the world are offering personalized drug testing services that screen a number of drugs for use against culture cancer cells. However the technique is time-consuming and costly, according to the report. This is especially true for solid tumors, the conditions of which are difficult to replicate outside the body.
Functional drug testing was embraced by cancer researchers in the late 20th century but fell out of favor due to limitations of the time. As technology improves and pharmacy options expand, momentum for the "try-everything" approach is growing and more studies are finding success.
In pilot studies, researchers have found more than half of people with blood cancer whose treatment was guided by functional drug testing had longer remission periods compared to standard treatment.
"This is a revolution. Patients are demanding this approach," Christopher Kemp, PhD, a cancer biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, told Nature.
However, there are still barriers.
Large-scale testing of genome-directed approaches performed by researchers at the Medical University of Vienna found the technique effective for some cancers, but for only around 10% of patients.
Oncologists in the U.S. are also beholden to insurance providers for which drugs will be covered, and functional drug testing is often too expensive to be appealing. In 1996, an official policy classified drug-sensitivity assays as "experimental," making them eligible for Medicare coverage, the report said.