On February 22, 2022 Biocept, Inc. (Nasdaq: BIOC), a leading provider of molecular diagnostic assays, products and services, reported the ability of its CNSide cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) assay to aid in therapeutic research programs for metastatic brain cancer in a presentation at the Molecular & Precision Med Tri-Con meeting (Press release, Biocept, FEB 22, 2022, View Source [SID1234608831]). The company is also exhibiting (booth #508) at the conference, which is the leading international meeting for the precision medicine community, Feb. 21-23, 2022, in San Diego.
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During the presentation, Michael Dugan, M.D., Biocept’s Chief Medical Officer and Medical Director, discussed the growing interest in improving the diagnosis and treatment of leptomeningeal disease (LMD), a devastating complication in which metastatic cancer spreads to the membrane surrounding the brain and spinal cord. Newer targeted therapies can often reduce or resolve debilitating symptoms of LMD and extend life expectancy. However, the current standards of care, CSF cytology and radiological imaging, have limited sensitivity for detecting central nervous system metastasis, and do not identify molecular treatment targets or quantify tumor cell counts.
"A key to precision medicine is identifying molecular targets for therapy," Dr. Dugan said. "Relying on the primary tumor is not sufficient because biomarker status often differs between the primary and metastatic tumors. With CNSide, we have the first commercially available method to measure biomarker status in real-time during therapy and quantify changes in tumor cell counts to really understand how patients are responding to therapy—as opposed to waiting months for radiologic changes or another surgical biopsy."
"Companies developing novel therapies for metastatic brain cancers face significant challenges in determining treatment response with traditional methods," said Samuel D. Riccitelli, Biocept’s Chairman, and Interim President and CEO. "We believe that serial quantitative monitoring with our CNSide assay can have a tremendous impact on the success of many therapeutic clinical trials, and we are pleased to support these important research efforts aimed at providing new treatments for patients with limited time and options."
CNSide is based on Biocept’s proprietary quantitative tumor cell capture and detection method, paired with assays to identify actionable molecular treatment targets. The assay answers three key questions that may help inform treatment decisions: Is there tumor? Is there a target for treatment? Is there a trend to treatment response? Because genetic changes can occur as metastatic cancer spreads to the central nervous system, the evaluation of cerebrospinal fluid provides a unique opportunity to identify biomarkers such as HER2 and EGFR in patients with metastatic breast, lung, and other cancers, to help guide therapy selection. In addition, the quantitative tumor cell count assay can be used in a serial fashion to more effectively monitor the response to therapy than other current methods.
A recording of the presentation, titled "A Novel CSF Assay to Help Diagnose, Manage, and Follow Response to Therapy in Patients with Leptomeningeal Metastasis," will be available on the Biocept website after the conference concludes.