""Death From Cancer"" Gene Signature Predicts Poor Outcome

ANAHEIM, California APR 18, 2005 (Reuters Health) - Using microarray analysis, cancer researchers have identified an 11-gene signature that is strongly associated with a poor response to treatment, increased risk of metastatic spread, and shorten survival in patients with a variety of primary tumor types.

The data "seem to indicate the presence of a conserved BMI-1 oncogene-driven pathway similarly engaged in both normal stem cells and a highly malignant subset of human cancers diagnosed in a wide range of organs and uniformly exhibiting a marked propensity toward metastatic dissemination as well as high probability of treatment failure," the researchers explain in an abstract of the 96th annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Early identification of cancer patients with the 11-gene so-called "death from cancer signature" will allow clinicians and patients to consider therapeutic strategies beyond the conventional at the time of diagnosis, said Dr. Gennadi V. Glinksy from the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center in San Diego.

According to the team, 93% of human and 87% of mouse tissues analyzed manifest negative (non-stem cell-like) expression profiles of the 11-gene signature.

They evaluated the prognostic power of the 11-gene signature in several independent therapy outcome data sets of clinical samples obtained from 1566 cancer patients diagnosed with 10 different types of cancer: prostate, breast, lung, ovarian, bladder, lymphoma, mesothelioma, medulloblastoma, glioma, and acute myeloid leukemia.

Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that a stem cell-like expression profile of the 11-gene signature in primary tumors was a "consistent powerful predictor" of a short time to disease recurrence, distant metastasis, and death after therapy.

Additional studies are planned to validate these observations. If confirmed, patients with this genetic signature might be candidates for early more aggressive individualized therapy, the investigators suggest.


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