Stanford Medical Center has announced the results of a study on the feasibility of providing patients with Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS) with personalized treatment plans based on blood cancer samples. The study, supported by AI platform developer Notable, comprised 20 patients with MDS who provided blood samples with a goal of developing individualized treatment regimens with 30 days.

The report findings showed that all 20 patients were delivered a personalized treatment plan bases on the testing with results. Interim clinical data demonstrated both positive and negative predictive value averaged 84 percent.

“Ex vivo drug sensitivity technology must have a rapid turnaround time, accuracy and efficacy in order to be useful in the clinic,” said Peter Greenberg, M.D., professor of Medicine (Hematology) and director, Stanford MDS Center at Stanford University Cancer Center. “Notable Lab’s ex vivo drug sensitivity assay screened marrow samples we sent them from patients in our recent biologically focused feasibility trial against a collection of investigational and FDA-approved compounds. These patients had higher risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and were refractory to standard therapy. Potentially actionable therapeutic results were returned to us for the patients enrolled in our trial within a clinically actionable time frame.”

The study provides a feasibility framework of this kind of timely reporting and improves the timelines of providing more targeted, effective treatments to cancer patients, which can have a significant impact on outcomes.

“These data suggest the potential utility of this methodology to aid in decision-making for novel therapeutic drug selection in MDS patients with HMA-refractory disease,” Greenberg concluded.

Steps involved in the study:

• Stanford Medical Center sent the blood samples to Notable and testing partner Tempus;
• Notable analyzed hundreds of requested drugs and drug combos against each sample; Tempus did the DNA sequencing;
• The Stanford MDS tumor board combined data for each patient into a report; and
• The report and personalized treatment recommendation was then shared with physician for each patient.

“This partnership represents the future of precision medicine because it combines the strength of molecular sequencing with next-generation functional drug sensitivity tests,” said Matt Silva, Notable founder. “It’s the type of trial I wish had existed for my dad because these approaches produce immediately actionable treatment options for physicians and their patients.”

Stanford Medical Center, Notable and Tempus are working to prepare a detailed paper on the study’s approach and results, for publication later this year. Further data regarding the trial and methodology used will be presented at the upcoming European Hematology Association (EHA) annual meeting in June.