Personalis (NASDAQ:PSNL) in collaboration with the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), London, and the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, UK, has announced published results from its early-stage breast cancer study in the peer-reviewed, top tier journal Annals of Oncology.
The company, along with Professor Nick Turner and Dr. Isaac Garcia-Murillas and their colleagues at ICR and Royal Marsden, highlight advancements in the groundbreaking study of breast cancer residual disease (MRD) and recurrence detection using Personalis’ NeXT Personal, an ultra-sensitive personalized test designed to detect small traces of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in the blood of cancer patients and survivors.
“Most personalized liquid biopsies currently use whole exome sequencing to identify mutations,” said Dr. Garcia-Murillas, senior staff scientist in the Molecular Oncology Group at ICR, and first author of the publication. “However, the NeXT Personal approach goes one step further and uses whole genome sequencing to identify up to 1,800 mutations in a patient’s tumor DNA that could uniquely identify recurrence of the patient’s cancer from a blood sample.”
Dr. Garcia-Murillas added, “NeXT Personal demonstrated the best MRD performance we have seen in this study cohort. With the ultra-sensitive performance of NeXT Personal, we see strong opportunities to impact breast cancer care and management especially for the escalation and de-escalation of treatment.”
Richard Chen, MD, MS, CMO and EVP of R&D at Personalis, commented, “We designed NeXT Personal to detect residual or recurrent breast cancer in its earliest stages. This study shows the clinical importance of ultra-sensitive ctDNA detection in early-stage breast cancer. With the ability to detect breast cancer recurrence well ahead of standard of care imaging, we can potentially help patients receive treatment sooner for their cancer, or give patients additional peace of mind with a negative test.”
