German researchers advance personalized cancer treatment methods

Researchers in Germany are advancing personalized approaches to cancer treatment. A study by the University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein and the University of Lübeck describes a method to predict the effectiveness of chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer. By creating thin, viable tissue slices from freshly operated patients, scientists can test how specific drugs affect the individual tumor's structure and immune cells in a laboratory setting before treatment begins. Early results suggest that patients whose tumor tissue responded well to a specific drug in the lab also experienced longer periods without disease progression during actual treatment.

In a separate international study involving the Universities of Frankfurt and Marburg, researchers investigated the efficacy of the immunotherapy drug Atezolizumab for patients with triple-negative breast cancer. The study found that while the treatment did not provide a significant overall survival advantage, it did increase the rate of pathological complete remission from 57 percent to 63 percent. Researchers concluded that identifying specific biological markers, such as high numbers of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, may help determine which patients are most likely to benefit from immunotherapy.