A new test picks the chemotherapy most suited to the tumour
一种新的检验手段将为肿瘤患者选择最有效的化疗方案
CHEMOTHERAPY, used to treat cancer since the 1940s, is a blunt instrument. The drugs attack every rapidly dividing cell in the body. Cancer cells are destroyed but so too are cells that would be better kept alive, such as hair follicles and the cells that line the gut, the loss of which makes cancer patients bald and nauseous. Although several cancers can now be treated by drugs targeted directly at the tumour cells, in most cases a patient's survival depends on whether he dies from the side effects of chemotherapy before the chemotherapy kills the cancer, or vice versa. A way to pick the right type of chemotherapy would make a big difference.
从上世纪40年代起，一种精确度很低的疗法，化学疗法开始被应用。化学药物攻击所有快速分裂的细胞。尽管癌细胞被杀死，与此同时对人体有益的细胞，例如毛囊细胞和调节肠蠕动的细胞也会随之被杀伤，因此经过化学疗法之后，病人大多脱发并伴有呕吐。尽管现在几种肿瘤细胞可以被化学药物准确地定位，但很多肿瘤病人在化学药物杀死肿瘤细胞之前就死于化学药物的副作用了。所以选择合适的化学疗法很有必要。
Anil Potti and colleagues, of Duke University in North Carolina, have proven—in principle, at least—that they can do exactly that. Instead of prescribing chemotherapies according to a doctor's best guess, they propose a genetic analysis to predict which type of chemotherapy would stand the greatest chance of zapping cancerous cells.
北加州Duke大学的Anil Potti和他的同事们声称，至少从理论上，他们可以做到选择合适的化学疗法。并不依赖于临床医生自己的臆断，而是通过分析患者的基因型来作出哪种化学制剂最有效地杀伤肿瘤细胞的推测。
Their method is based on finding a rough match between the genes that are activated in an individual's tumour and those that are typically busy in cancer cells when different chemotherapies perform at their best. As they explain in Nature Medicine, the more similar these two profiles, the more likely it is that a patient taking a drug will benefit from its tumour-destroying potential. The test could improve the prospects of patients who currently suffer the side effects of chemotherapies without knowing if they are undergoing a treatment that has a good chance of working for them.
他们的方法是，将个体肿瘤对药物的敏感基因与多数肿瘤细胞对药物敏感的基因进行对比。他们在Nature Medicine上表示，对药物敏感基因的对比中，肿瘤个案与普遍的肿瘤越相似，该个案患者的化疗愈后就越乐观。这个检验方法将会使患者不会再在对化疗效果一无所知的情况下，承受副作用的痛苦。
The test differs from existing technologies in that it can pick between drugs for many cancers rather than just one. It correctly predicted the optimum drug from the six main chemotherapies used to treat three of the most common tumour types in 81% of tests. Since submitting the paper, the researchers say they have increased the number of chemotherapies to 15 and maintained the high accuracy. Clinical trials are under way.
与现存的技术不同，这个检验可以为多种癌症选择合适的化疗方案而不是简单的一种。在81%的检验中这种技术为3种主要的肿瘤治疗，从6种主要的化疗方案中挑选出合适的方案。到截稿为止，科学家们声称现在这种技术已经可以覆盖15种化疗方案并保证一定的高精确度。同时，临床实验正在开展中。翻译 by mickey2050
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