Pretreatment testing of SIMFO anticancer drug on patient blood

Dubai / Bayreuth - At the 2nd World Conference for Drug Discovery and Therapy, Prof. Dr. Katharina Pachmann (Jena University) presented a worldwide unique approach in oncology that can detect circulating tumor cells in the blood of cancer patients.

After tumor removal, any remaining, washed out tumor cells are responsible for the development of metastases, which shorten survival time in most patients. A good, often metastasis-free prognosis of survival is achieved if the number of tumor cells present in the blood can be significantly reduced through chemotherapy, or in the case of breast cancer, with hormone therapy. Based on these findings, the impact of treatment on this remnant tumor burden in the blood can be easily determined.

With SIMFO, the efficacy of a drug intended for treatment on the tumor cells in the blood of each patient can already be tested in vitro prior to administration using the MAINTRAC method. A good correlation was seen between in vitro results and actual efficacy. In many cases, the results were decisive for the subsequent treatment.

With the MAINTRAC method it is possible for the first time to test the efficacy of a treatment prior to administering the drug. Currently, there is no other direct method available in the treatment of cancer, particularly in adjuvant (preventive) therapy, to check treatment response.

To cut down on the development time of new anti-cancer drugs, the MAINTRAC method may also be used prior to clinical trials. While the efficacy of the drug is already being studied in vitro with patient cells, MAINTRAC can assist at the same in the targeted use of animal testing and Phase I and Phase II studies.

SIMFO, Spezielle Immunologie Forschung + Entwicklung GmbH was founded in 1999 by Dr. med. Ulrich Pachmann. SIMFO GmbH is primarily a contract research institute for the development of new testing methods in the fields of hematology and oncology.
Key areas are quality assurance of platelet testing, validation of tests for treatment-dependent hemocytopenia and tests for drug sensitivity testing of tumor cells and the asservation of these cells from the peripheral blood.
SIMFO services include specialist literature searching as well as strategic laboratory development consultancy.

Further information:

Transfusion Center Bayreuth
Peter Pachmann
Company Communication

SIMFO Spezielle Immunologische Forschung + Entwicklung GmbH
Tel. 0049(0) 921 850 200
Fax 0049 (0)921 850 203
presse@simfo.de
www.simfo.de

This release was published on openPR.