A repository for “rare” tumor markers?

Eleftherios P. Diamandis

doi:10.1515/cclm-2014-0012

Article

A repository for “rare” tumor markers?

Eleftherios P. Diamandis

Published/Copyright: February 7, 2014

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From the journal Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (CCLM) Volume 52 Issue 6

Abstract

In 2013, the National Cancer Institute of the USA announced a new program, to catalog “exceptional responders” in cancer trials. This program aims to identify a small number of well-responding patients to new treatments, with the hope that in the future, patients with cancer could be treated with the most effective drugs (personalized therapy). In this paper, I extrapolate on this idea and propose to also catalog cancer biomarkers that only work in a minor proportion of patients, and are currently ignored as clinically useless. Such biomarkers could be used to select optimal treatments, optimal monitoring or for assessing prognosis. The informative biomarkers for these rare patients may also provide the opportunity to identify molecular networks that are altered in cancer and explain why these markers are elevated in these few patients. I provide an example of two kallikreins (KLK6 and KLK10), which are highly elevated in serum of 3%–5% of pancreatic cancer patients at 100% specificity.

Keywords: exceptional responders; personalized cancer markers; personalized medicine; rare tumor markers

Corresponding author: Eleftherios P. Diamandis, MD, PhD, FRCP(C), FRSC, FAAAS, Hold’em for Life Chair in Prostate Cancer Biomarkers, Division Head of Clinical Biochemistry, Mount Sinai Hospital and University Health Network, Professor and Head, Division of Clinical Biochemistry, Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Mount Sinai Hospital, Joseph and Wolf Lebovic Centre, 60 Murray Street [Box 32], Floor 6, Room L6-201, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5T 3L9, Phone: +14 165 868443, Fax: +14 166 195521, E-mail: ediamandis@mtsinai.on.ca; and Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Mount Sinai Hospital, Department of Clinical Biochemistry, University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Drs. Randy Haun and Craig D. Logsdon for providing the serum samples described in Figure 1. The author is Principal Investigator of the Early Detection Research Network (EDRN) of the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

Conflict of interest statement

Author’s conflict of interest disclosure: The author stated that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this article.

Research funding: None declared.

Employment or leadership: The author is Principal Investigator of the Early Detection Research Network (EDRN) of the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

Honorarium: None declared.

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Received: 2014-1-3

Accepted: 2014-1-13

Published Online: 2014-2-7

Published in Print: 2014-6-1

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/cclm-2014-0012

Keywords for this article

exceptional responders; personalized cancer markers; personalized medicine; rare tumor markers