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Company News: NEO New Oncology AG’s blood test NEOliquid finds targeted therapy for cancer patient
– Researchers from Kantonsspital Luzern and NEO New Oncology AG publish case study on patient benefiting from comprehensive blood-based diagnostics –
Researchers from Kantonsspital Luzern and NEO New Oncology AG jointly published a report in the December issue of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology describing the clinical efficacy of NEO New Oncology AG’s novel liquid biopsy assay NEOliquid.
NEOliquid is a non-invasive blood test that identifies clinically relevant, cancer-specific point mutations, insertions, deletions and gene fusions in circulating cell-free DNA down to an allele frequency of 0.1%. In addition, NEOliquid is able to detect copy number alterations in tiny amounts of circulating tumor DNA.
In the case study, conventional tissue diagnostics had not been able to detect the relevant mutation in a patient with metastatic lung adenocarcinoma, who had been extensively pretreated with EGFR-inhibitors, chemotherapy, neurosurgery, and brain radiation.
NEOliquid identified EGFR T790M conferring resistance to the previously applied drugs in a simple blood sample. As a result, the patient was treated with the third-generation EGFR-inhibitor AZD9291. The disease rapidly responded to the treatment, with both the primary tumor and metastases shrinking, and the patient’s condition improving. Follow up controls with NEOliquid every 2 weeks showed a gradual decrease of the resistance mutation in the patient’s blood over time, confirming the efficacy of the drug. As of today, the clinicians observed no clinical, radiological or genomic signs of progression, and the patient remains well and on treatment.