New Platform Matches Patients to Precision Oncology Trials

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 19, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- A new open-source platform speeds matching of patients to precision medicine (PM) oncology trials, according to a study published online Oct. 6 in npj Precision Oncology.

Harry Klein, Ph.D., from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, and colleagues developed MatchMiner, an open-source platform to computationally match genomically profiled cancer patients to PM trials. The MatchMiner capabilities, its deployment at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and its impact on PM trial enrollment are characterized in the study.

The researchers report that from March 2016 through March 2021, 354 PM trials containing a broad range of genomic and clinical eligibility criteria were curated. MatchMiner facilitated 166 trial consents for 159 patients. MatchMiner had a shorter time from genomic sequencing report date to trial consent (55 days shorter; 22 percent earlier) versus patients consented through non-MatchMiner means.

“The combination of this growing body of genomic data and increasing number of precision medicine trials has created a kind of disconnect: finding the right trial for each patient can be a difficult task,” one author said in a statement. “MatchMiner helps bridge that gap.”

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