Doctors around the world may soon have access to a new tool that could better predict whether individual cancer patients will benefit from immune checkpoint inhibitors – a type of immunotherapy – using only routine blood tests and clinical data.
The artificial intelligence–based model, dubbed SCORPIO, was developed by a team of researchers from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) and the Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai.
The model is not only cheaper and more accessible, it’s significantly better at predicting outcomes than the two current biomarkers approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), according to findings published January 6 in Nature Medicine.
Immune checkpoint inhibitors are a very powerful tool against cancer, but they don’t yet work for most patients. These drugs are expensive, and they can come with serious side effects.”
Luc Morris, MD, study co-senior author, surgeon and research lab director at MSK
So the key is patient selection – matching the drugs with patients who are most likely to benefit, Dr. Morris says.
“There are some existing tools that predict whether tumors will respond to these drugs, but they tend to rely on advanced genomic testing that is not widely available around the world,” he adds. “We wanted to develop a model that can help guide treatment decisions using widely available data, such as routine blood tests.”
Collaborating to make checkpoint inhibitor therapy work for more cancer patients
Checkpoint inhibitors target the immune system rather than the cancer itself. These drugs work by taking