A recent Nature Medicine study investigates the effectiveness of precision-guided treatment (PGT) in children at a high risk of cancer. Study: Precision-guided treatment in high-risk pediatric cancers . Image Credit: S_L / Shutterstock.
com The combination of next-generation sequencing (NGS) and targeted anti-cancer therapies has advanced precision medicine for the treatment of cancer. Although pediatric precision oncology-based research has successfully identified molecular targets in over 65% of children with high cancer risks, the clinical application of this strategy is significantly low. This low clinical uptake of precision medicine could be attributed to physician uncertainty towards the efficacy and benefit-risk balance of PGT.
Previous studies have highlighted the clinical benefits of PGT. However, there remains a lack of data on these treatments' objective response or survival outcomes, thus necessitating additional data to determine when and which patients should receive PGT. The Australian ZERO Childhood Cancer Precision Medicine Program conducted a multicenter cohort-based clinical trial.
Study participants were recruited between September 2017 and December 2020 from eight pediatric oncology centers in Australia, with prospective data collected between September 2017 and June 2022. The current study aimed to determine the proportion of pediatric cancer patients to be recommended to physicians for PGT in a clinically relevant time frame. Subsequently, the treatment.