Affiliations
- 1Cancer Science Institute of Singapore, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117599, Singapore.
- 2NUS Center for Cancer Research (N2CR), Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University Singapore, Singapore 117599, Singapore.
- 3Department of Haematology-Oncology, National University Cancer Institute, Singapore, National University Health System, Singapore 119074, Singapore.
- 4KYAN Therapeutics, Singapore 118258, Singapore.
- 5Department of Laboratory Medicine, National University Hospital, Singapore 119074, Singapore.
- 6Department of Pharmacy, National University Health System, Singapore 119074, Singapore.
- 7Department of Diagnostic Imaging, National University Hospital, Singapore 119074, Singapore.
- 8Department of Pathology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117597, Singapore.
- 9Department of Otolaryngology, National University Hospital, Singapore 119074, Singapore.
- 10Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital, Singapore 329563, Singapore.
- 11Department of Haematology, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore 169608, Singapore.
- 12Lymphoma Genomic Translational Research Laboratory, Division of Cellular and Molecular Research, National Cancer Centre Singapore, Singapore 169610, Singapore.
- 13Division of Medical Oncology, National Cancer Centre Singapore, Singapore 169610, Singapore.
- 14SingHealth Duke-NUS Blood Cancer Centre, Singapore 168582, Singapore.
- 15Programme in Cancer and Stem Cell Biology, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore 169857, Singapore.
- 16Genome Institute of Singapore, A*STAR, Singapore 138672, Singapore.
- 17Department of Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117597, Singapore.
- 18Office of Education, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore 169857, Singapore.
- 19Department of Pharmacology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117597, Singapore.
- 20N.1 Institute for Health, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117456, Singapore.
- 21Institute for Digital Medicine (WisDM), Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117597, Singapore.
Abstract
Although combination therapy is the standard of care for relapsed/refractory non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (RR-NHL), combination treatment chosen for an individual patient is empirical, and response rates remain poor in individuals with chemotherapy-resistant disease. Here, we evaluate an experimental-analytic method, quadratic phenotypic optimization platform (QPOP), for prediction of patient-specific drug combination efficacy from a limited quantity of biopsied tumor samples. In this prospective study, we enrolled 71 patients with RR-NHL (39 B cell NHL and 32 NK/T cell NHL) with a median of two prior lines of treatment, at two academic hospitals in Singapore from November 2017 to August 2021. Fresh biopsies underwent ex vivo testing using a panel of 12 drugs with known efficacy against NHL to identify effective single and combination treatments. Individualized QPOP reports were generated for 67 of 75 patient samples, with a median turnaround time of 6 days from sample collection to report generation. Doublet drug combinations containing copanlisib or romidepsin were most effective against B cell NHL and NK/T cell NHL samples, respectively. Off-label QPOP-guided therapy offered at physician discretion in the absence of standard options (n = 17) resulted in five complete responses. Among patients with more than two prior lines of therapy, the rates of progressive disease were lower with QPOP-guided treatments than with conventional chemotherapy. Overall, this study shows that the identification of patient-specific drug combinations through ex vivo analysis was achievable for RR-NHL in a clinically applicable time frame. These data provide the basis for a prospective clinical trial evaluating ex vivo-guided combination therapy in RR-NHL.
PMID: 36260690 DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.abn7824