Over 432 000 new cases of colorectal cancer are diagnosed each year. By 2020, this number is expected to rise to around 502 000, according to experts. Research has not yet revealed the exact causes of the disease, and doctors struggle to explain why one person develops it and another does not. What is clear is that it can be extremely aggressive and often does not show symptoms early on. Those affected often don't know it's there until it has spread to other organs, sometimes making it untreatable.

The EU-funded ChemoGuide project is seeking to validate a test developed by a previous EU-funded project called ICSCn a clinical trial. The ‘2Treat’ test, as the researchers call it, works by extracting tissue from patients and reconstructing the tumour for testing in the laboratory.

“The ChemoGuide clinical studies will verify the capability and robustness of the 2Treat test,” explains Ole Thastrup, project coordinator and chief executive officer of Danish research company 2cureX.

“Our researchers are assessing the test’s ability to predict which drug combination therapy is most effective for treating the isolated cancer cells without resistance in the colorectal cancer patient,” explains Ole Thastrup.

ICSC went from testing individual cancer drugs to testing combinations of these drugs – a feat never before achieved.

A clinically proven 2Treat test is expected to significantly improve the length of time during and after treatment that a patient lives with the disease without it getting worse. It can also be used to determine the best treatment options for specific patients.

If the trial goes to plan, oncologists will, for the first time, have at their disposal a technology capable of testing the efficacy of all possible treatment combinations used for treating colorectal cancer.

The technology would also help identify new drugs that could be combined with existing cancer treatments, with the aim of improving survival rates. With further work, the team is also confident that the technology could be used to combat other forms of cancer.

Two clinical trials

Two major clinical trials are taking place under ChemoGuide – one in Copenhagen and the other in Hamburg. According to Thastrup, the technology is already showing great promise but more data is needed. The team expects to have this by the time the study ends in 2015. 

A validated 2Treat test could see colorectal cancer become a chronic manageable disease, just like other forms of cancer or HIV, maintains Thastrup.

Once ChemoGuide finishes, a follow-on clinical trial focusing on other cancers will begin, bringing the technology closer to a commercialised product for use by hospitals, universities and small biotechnology companies.