NCCN Guidelines: Chemosensitivity/resistance assays to be part of Principles of Chemotherapy section

Feb 26 2010

Precision Therapeutics announced today that The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) recently updated the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines for Oncology (NCCN Guidelines™) for Ovarian Cancer Including Fallopian Tube Cancer and Primary Peritoneal Cancer to include the use of chemosensitivity/resistance assays as part of the Principles of Chemotherapy section. While the NCCN Guidelines™ state that this technology is not intended to supplant standard of care chemotherapy, chemosensitivity/resistance assays are being used in some NCCN Member Institutions for decisions related to future chemotherapy in situations where there are multiple equivalent chemotherapy options available. This is a NCCN category 3 recommendation.

Recent studies presented at ASCO and published in the International Journal of Gynecologic Cancer, evaluated the association between prediction of response to chemotherapy and progression-free interval and overall survival in ovarian cancer.

"We offer our gratitude to NCCN on behalf of the many ovarian cancer patients who could be faced with the potential side effects of ineffective chemotherapies.  Not only are oncologists recognizing the benefits of using chemosensitivity and resistance assays when faced with equivalent therapeutic options, but they are also paving the way for greater support of personalized medicine in oncology," says Karen Kaplan, CEO of the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance.  

Epithelial ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death from gynecologic cancer in the United States and the country's fifth most common cause of cancer mortality in women. In the year 2009, there were more than 21,000 new diagnoses and nearly 15,000 deaths from this neoplasm in the United States.

The NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology™ are developed and updated through an evidence-based process with explicit review of the scientific evidence integrated with expert judgment by multidisciplinary panels of physicians from NCCN Member Institutions. The most recent version of this and all the NCCN Guidelines™ are available free of charge at NCCN.org.