Submitted by Administrator on Wed, 05/08/2020 - 16:27
New online tool to analyse complex cancer patient data
A new clinical decision-making tool has been developed for patients on a trial offering personalised cancer treatment. Cambridge is one of seven leading cancer centres across Europe that constitute Cancer Core Europe collaborating on a new type of clinical trial. Called the 'Basket of Baskets' trial, patients with different types of cancer are treated with the same targeted therapy because they share a common genetic mutation that’s causing their disease. In order to select the best treatment for each patient signed up to the trial, the Cancer Core Europe centres have created a sophisticated digital platform to analyse large volumes of complex genetic and molecular data from patients’ tissue biopsies and blood tests.
Called the Molecular Tumour Board Portal (MTBP), it is a world-first tool connecting centres across European countries. Carlos Caldas (CRUK Cambridge Institute, CUH and CRUK Cambridge Centre Breast Cancer Programme Director) and Richard Baird (CUH and CRUK Cambridge Centre Breast Cancer Programme) are authors of an article published in Nature Medicine describing how the MTBP system automatically collects and interprets large volumes of patient data, extracting the most clinically relevant information to produce an interactive data-rich online report.
Every patient report generated from the online clinical decision support system is discussed during one of the weekly web-based multi-disciplinary team meetings where members from all seven centres evaluate the results and agree on each patient’s personalised treatment plan.