Antibodies against colorectal cancer

Metastatic colorectal cancer can now be treated with the help of monoclonal antibodies. Cetuximab and Panitumumab are examples of appropriate medicines. Point of application of drugs is always the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). Clinical trials for monotherapy hereby show response rates of around 10%.
Unfortunately, the positive detection of EGFR expression by immuno-staining is not reliable. For the preservation of clinical results must therefore be an intensive search for alternative, more predictive biomarkers. The oncogenic activation of the EGFR signaling pathways, such as the mutation of the KRAS, BRAF or PIK3CA oncogenes, or the inactivation of the PTEN tumor suppressor gene is of paramount importance for the progression of colorectal carcinomas. KRAS mutations occur in 35-45% of patients with colorectal carcinoma and appears as an important predictive marker of resistance to panitumumab or cetuximab treatment. Wild-type KRAS-carrying colorectal tumors showing mutation of BRAF or PIK3CA or loss of PTEN expression may be associated with resistance to EGFR-targeted monoclonal antibody treatment. These additional biomarkers require further validation before including them into clinical practice. But the development of new treatment  algorithms to identify patients who are most likely to respond to treatment will be allowed by further information of the molecular basis for sensitivity or resistance to EGFR-targeted monoclonal antibodies. Individualized treatment for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer will be more realizable by the use of biomarkers like KRAS mutations for anti-EFGR monoclonal antibody treatment.

Tags: antibodies, cancer, Therapy

This entry was posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 5:02 am and is filed under Therapy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.