Methods of assessing cancer drug response rates ‘need updating’

The outdated methods by which cancer drug response rates are measured could be making some therapies appear less effective than they actually are.

A study from the University of Colorado has indicated that the current standard technique, called RECIST – which measures the dimensions of a tumour to gauge a patient's response to chemotherapy and radiation – may not be as useful as it once was.

This is because many modern targeted therapies do not immediately kill cancer cells but instead interrupt their ability to grow and proliferate, often through the immediate cessation of metabolic rates. While the cells eventually die, cell death and tumour shrinkage cannot be seen straight away.

As such, the report highlighted a recent article published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology that indicated that 15 percent of patients taken off clinical trials due to a perceived lack of response may have actually been responding to the drug, but in a way that could not captured by RECIST.

Dr Natalie Serkova, investigator at the University of Colorado Cancer Center and professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, said RECIST "remains useful in characterising the response to these new targeted therapies after they have had months to eventually result in tumour shrinkage, but new measures are needed to show before months have passed whether these drugs are working".

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