In his Pulitzer-winning book, “The Emperor of All Maladies,” Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee described cancer as a flaw in our growth that is deeply entrenched in ourselves.
“We can rid ourselves of cancer, then,” he wrote, “only as much as we can rid ourselves of the processes in our physiology that depend on growth — aging, regeneration, healing, reproduction.”
Despite Dr. Mukherjee’s pessimistic assessment, doctors are still determined to defeat the disease. Today, lung cancer has a new enemy thanks to CollabRx’s Therapy Finder tool.
This release is actually the second version of Therapy Finder for lung cancer. The company has also released editions of Therapy Finder for both melanoma and colon cancer.
Oncologists can access Therapy Finder through the CollabRx website. Essentially, physicians enter specifics about the cancer into an online form. The application then searches for available drugs and open clinical trials that may benefit the patient.
CollabRx scientists keep the content of Therapy Finder dynamically up to date. The application’s semantic integration platform allows medical advisors to utilize existing knowledge about the molecular medicines in oncology.
The second-generation version of Therapy Finder for lung cancer addresses the biomarker ROS1 as a relevant molecular subtype and thus a diagnostic test for lung cancer. If the app detects patients that are ROS1-positive, they may be eligible for clinical trials offering drugs called ALK inhibitors.
The lung, melanoma and colon cancer interfaces are just the beginning for Therapy Finder, according to Thomas Mika, president and CEO at CollabRx.
“We are developing additional tools for all common cancer types and extending their reach to address issues important to pathologists and diagnostic laboratories, as well as physicians treating patients with earlier stage disease and the prevention and early detection of cancer,” Mika said.
The cloud-based Therapy Finder apps supported his company’s mission of becoming a physician’s primary source of clinically relevant and actionable information to present to patients at the point of care.
Edited by
Braden Becker
