Reference no: EM133675264
Precision medicine is an emerging approach for disease treatment that is based on recognition of each individual patient's variability in environment, lifestyle, and genetic makeup. A particularly promising application area of precision medicine is in the treatment of patients with breast, colorectal, and lung cancers, as well as melanomas and various types of leukemia.
Individual cancer patients today receive generally the same treatment as other cancer patients with the same kind and stage of cancer-based on current standard-of-care recommendations. However, different patients may respond differently to the same treatment, and, only recently, have doctors begun to understand why.
Cancer is caused by certain changes to our genes that control the way our cells grow and divide. These changes include mutations in the DNA that make up our genes. Such mutations can be inherited from our parents or acquired through exposure to certain carcinogens or the ultraviolet rays of the sun. In the ideal application of precision medicine, once physicians have identified the mutations causing a patient's cancer, they can prescribe drugs that target and destroy only the cells associated with that mutation, as opposed to using existing chemotherapy drugs that kill all rapidly reproducing cells, whether they are cancerous or not. Patients receiving precision medicine treatments targeted specifically at cancer cells tend to experience fewer side effects, feel better, and recover more quickly.
Sophia Genetics is a Swiss-based analytics company that employs powerful artificial intelligence algorithms and a global community of hospitals to improve the treatment of patients suffering from cancer. The process begins with the extraction of the patient's DNA via a blood draw or biopsy. The hospital then prepares samples and processes them using a DNA sequencer that determines the sequence of the four chemical building blocks or nucleotides (As, Ts, Cs, and Gs) that make up an individual's DNA molecule.
The patient's DNA sequence files are uploaded to the Sophia DDM software-as-a-service platform and analyzed using patented advanced algorithms and machine learning approaches.
The software identifies variations in the patient's genetic code and then uses historical data to suggest the best combination of drugs to treat a specific cancer in an individual patient. A powerful capability of Sophia DDM is that it can compare patient data across hospitals, so its users can tell a patient that his or her cancer looks like the cancer of 1,000 other patients-of whom 600 received the recommended drug and 80 percent survived more than five years. Currently, 215 hospitals in 35 countries are using the Sophia DDM platform. The more hospitals that use the analytical platform, the more genomic profiles it analyzes, and the smarter the artificial intelligence gets.
Sophia DDM is a software-as-a-service platform, so hospitals access the service online, paying a modest fee of $50-$200 whenever they use it to enter a new sample. Healthcare professionals who use Sophia DDM for genetic sequencing and analysis can get drug treatment regime recommendations for individual patients within a day. Without this technology, the process of determining a drug treatment can take from two to several days.
The software-as-a-service approach enables smaller hospitals and clinics to afford the technology. It also allows for the democratization of information-that is, data about drug outcomes for different cancers and conditions can be used to update a database and be shared globally. Sharing the data encourages collaboration and clinics have access to experts and results from around the world.
However, precision medicine is not yet a fully developed technology and as such has limits related to cost, accuracy, and efficacy. It cannot work for all patients and all cancers. One person's tumor cells can vary depending on where in the body they are located. There can even be variation in the same tumor from the same patient. This issue of tumor heterogeneity is a key issue of precision medicine that must be addressed along with the outgrowth of cells resistant to treatment, serious adverse events, and cost. Too narrow a concentration on precision medicine may divert resources from other promising avenues of cancer research. Time is required to resolve these issues.
Questions
1. What advantages does the Sophia DDM system have compared to the approach attempted by MD Anderson, as described in the previous case. Which approach do you believe has the greater potential for success in the long run? Why?
2. The creation of a patient database shared among hospitals globally raises concerns about patient privacy. How might Sophia DDM address this concern?