A new almanac may help clinicians better tailor cancer treatments

Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have developed a new tool that integrates various types of molecular data from patients and tumors, with the aim of guiding precision medicine. The tool, known as the Molecular Oncology Almanac or MOAlmanac, can help identify the molecular profiles of individual tumors that are connected to disease prognosis and resistance or sensitivity to therapeutics. MOAlmanac can also assist researchers in finding a cancer cell line with a molecular profile similar to an individual tumor's, as well as the drugs that can kill those cells or stall their growth in the lab.

The Challenges of Precision Cancer Medicine

While precision cancer medicine has shown great promise in tailoring treatment based on an individual's unique molecular profile, interpreting the vast array of data points that make up a person and their cancer is a challenge for oncologists. Furthermore, most databases and analytical tools used by oncologists focus only on individual alterations in the somatic, or uninherited, protein-coding regions of the genome, and they generally do not include other important types of genetic data such as inherited variation or somatic fusions in genes.

The MOAlmanac Tool

The MOAlmanac tool is designed to help address these challenges. It integrates different kinds of data from patients and their tumors, including inherited genetic variation, somatic fusions in genes, and other features that characterize a tumor globally. By doing so, MOAlmanac can provide oncologists with a more complete picture of a patient's cancer and help them identify the most effective treatment strategies.

Testing and Results

Brendan Reardon, Eliezer Van Allen, and their colleagues developed MOAlmanac and tested it on different cohorts of patients. They found that it identified about two therapeutic strategies per patient and provided more clinical hypotheses than algorithms that only analyzed traditional kinds of data.

Advantages of MOAlmanac

In a video discussing the advantages of MOAlmanac, Reardon and Van Allen highlighted the potential for the tool to democratize precision oncology. They hope that one day any physician will be able to use their tool, regardless of their geographic location or the kind of data they have.

Journal Information: Brendan Reardon et al, Integrating molecular profiles into clinical frameworks through the Molecular Oncology Almanac to prospectively guide precision oncology, Nature Cancer (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s43018-021-00243-3