On the eve of the 2014 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium being held this week in California, Caris Life Sciences, a biotechnology leader and innovator in personalized medicine, to present a comprehensive international tumour-profiling study of colorectal cancer (CRC). More than 7,000 patients have been extensively studied in the context of Caris Molecular Intelligence.

Thus, this study is the most extensive multi-national analysis of key molecular abnormalities in colorectal cancer in the laboratory. Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer worldwide. Metastases occur in 40 to 50 per cent of newly diagnosed patients.

"This comprehensive study with more than 7,000 patients makes it clear that it is a mistake to treat this type of cancer as a single disease. The diversity of mutations leading the way towards new combinations of therapies and target proteins that may have a direct impact on future treatments," said Fadi Braiteh, MD, study co-author." We are in a phase in which we proceed to not only as a disease but as 20 to 30 different illnesses to treat colon cancer. This study also demonstrates the feasibility of tumor profiling for colorectal cancer in a large scale and sets the bar for the standard of care of patients higher."

The colon cancer study evaluated protein and DNA alterations in the EGFR signaling pathway. These include mutation and amplification analysis of KRAS , NRAS, HRAS, BRAF, PIK3CA, and HER2, and ErbB4 function losses at the PTEN enzyme and mutation analysis of the KRAS gene (wild type) in colorectal cancer patients. This data illustrates the importance of the EGFR signaling pathway for treatment of the disease. There was a high frequency of specific and coincident signal path changes are detected that have therapeutic significance.

"The anti-EGFR therapies panitumumab and cetuximab are proven treatments for the wild-type KRAS colorectal cancer. Although mutations of the KRAS enzyme resistance of EGFR can predict Mab therapy, talk only 80 percent of colorectal cancer patients with the KRAS wild-type to treatment," said Gargi Basu, Ph.D. of Caris Life Sciences and presenting author. "Tests for further molecular changes using different platforms, therefore, represent another important method to identify those patients who will not respond with high probability on an anti-EGFR therapy alone, in which a combination of different therapeutic methods is promising."

Caris Molecular Intelligence has established as a leading cancer profiling service on the market. More than 6,000 oncologists were able to more than 60,000 cancer patients to create individualized, actionable treatment plans for better patient care in at least 59 countries. At Caris Molecular Intelligence is a wide range of analytical technologies are used, which are based on the latest and most robust knowledge, including immunohistochemistry, fluorescence and chromogenic in situ hybridization, polymerase chain reaction and next-generation sequencing. This will give oncologists a comprehensive, clinically relevant cancer biomarkers unique profile of a patient. In contrast to other tumour-profiling services Caris Molecular Intelligence asks the individual tumor biology of a patient from complete and goes beyond the pure DNA analysis. On the basis of other important biological components, such as RNA and protein expression levels results in a multi-dimensional profile of the tumor patients, which can further explore the complex biological processes that control the cancer patient, close, and therefore provides more relevant targets for clinical treatment.

The multi-dimensional profile of the individual tumour of a patient is compared with the findings of Caris Molecular intelligence from its proprietary, industry-leading evidence care and bioinformatics for the identification and reporting of the most clinically relevant associations with drug therapies that are approved by the US Food & Drug Administration or the United States are examined in active clinical trials. Under the guidance of Caris Evidence Design Board, an expert team of 5 Ph.Ds and MDs 6, by means of the Caris Molecular evidence intelligence and bioinformatics, the findings and evidence from all relevant clinical trials in cancer and cancer biology, and in the scientific published medical literature, maintained, classified and cataloged. The method used here is a modification of the evidence test, as defined by the US Preventive Services Task Force of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality done. This platform includes far more than 100,000 audited publications and is constantly expanding. The Caris Molecular intelligence evidence and bioinformatics based on the most reliable, relevant to the quality standards of the company evidence and can currently suggest with the multidimensional approach for tumor profiling by Caris therapeutic instructions for up to 43 medications associations, far more than the 12 that uses are possible by next-generation sequencing. The Caris Molecular intelligence bioinformatics provides the profile and all results as a reader-friendly electronic reporting ready. Based on this underlying evidence can create a specially tailored to the patient treatment plan the oncologist.