New AI-based tool aims to help guide treatment for pancreatic cancer
It could help determine the regimen most likely to provide the greatest benefit
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Caris Life Sciences has launched a new diagnostic tool that aims to help guide treatment decisions for people with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), the most common form of pancreatic cancer.
In patients with advanced PDAC, two chemotherapy-based treatment regimens are commonly used for initial treatment: FOLFIRINOX or gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel. The new tool aims to help clinicians determine which of these two first-line treatment options is most likely to provide the greatest benefit, according to a press release from Caris.
David Spetzler, PhD, the company’s president, said the tool “represents a meaningful step forward in bringing molecular intelligence to a disease where clinicians have historically had to make difficult treatment decisions with limited biological guidance.”
Genetic data helps predict treatment most likely to benefit patients
The new tool, dubbed Caris AI Insights for PDAC, can be included upon request as part of MI Cancer Seek, a diagnostic test developed by Caris that was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in late 2024. Using samples of tumor tissue, the test incorporates both whole exome sequencing (WES) — which determines the sequence of all the parts of the genetic code that provide instructions to make proteins — and whole transcriptome sequencing (WTS), a test that assesses the sequence of genes that are active within the cancer cells.
The tool leverages WES and WTS alongside clinical data, using AI algorithms to identify patterns within these highly complex datasets. These patterns can then be used to infer how patients are likely to respond to different types of treatment. The tool also provides clinicians with risk scores and predictive outcomes for patients receiving first-line treatment with either FOLFIRINOX or gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel. The goal is to use tumor genetic data to predict which treatment is most likely to benefit patients.
“By harnessing the power of WES and WTS, this Caris AI Insights signature identifies complex molecular patterns that may predict differential benefit between standard first-line regimens,” Spetzler said. “This is exactly the type of advancement to improve patient care that our comprehensive platform was built to deliver.”
Caris’ platform uses a proprietary AI system to analyze real-world datasets comprising more than 550,000 patients, according to the company.
