Ex Vivo Drug Response Evaluation for Next Generation Care of Brain Metastases

Study Purpose

Pharmacoscopy refers to an ex vivo real-time drug sensitivity profiling platform that has been shown to be of value in the treatment of leukemia (Snijder et al. 2017) (Kornauth et al. 2022) and may help to identify novel treatment opportunities for brain tumors as well (Lee et al. 2022). The rationale for pharmacoscopy-based drug sensitivity testing on real-time patient biopsies or surgery material is multiple: measuring drug response and sensitivity directly in real-time patient material, overcomes the problem of limited molecular biomarkers for established targeted therapeutic options and can identify effective drugs even for non-targeted therapies such as chemotherapy. It can also identify hitherto unknown specific vulnerabilities of cancer cells. Furthermore, testing directly on patient material overcomes the limitations of patient-derived cell cultures, organoids, and patient xenografts, as their prolonged culture times risk cellular adaptations and clonal selection that alter drug sensitivity. Pharmacoscopy maintains the tumor cell composition, including bystander cells or tumor microenvironment, and limits cell culture to max 48 hours. Furthermore, pharmacoscopy measures drug responses on a single-cell and on a high-content level, uniquely allowing to measure the drug sensitivity of tumor cells, and allowing to compare it to the drug cytotoxicity on healthy cells from the same patient. This relative readout has previously been shown to be essential for the correct prediction of a clinical response in haematological malignancies (Snijder et al. 2017) (Kornauth et al. 2022). The aim of this study is to generate preliminary data regarding superiority of the personalized pharmacoscopy-guided approach compared to a standard non-pharmacoscopy-guided approach, in patients with brain metastases with an indication for surgery, and limited therapeutic systemic options according to the treating physician.

Recruitment Criteria

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Healthy volunteers are participants who do not have a disease or condition, or related conditions or symptoms

No
Study Type

An interventional clinical study is where participants are assigned to receive one or more interventions (or no intervention) so that researchers can evaluate the effects of the interventions on biomedical or health-related outcomes.


An observational clinical study is where participants identified as belonging to study groups are assessed for biomedical or health outcomes.


Searching Both is inclusive of interventional and observational studies.

Interventional
Eligible Ages 18 Years and Over
Gender All
More Inclusion & Exclusion Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

  • - Patients must be 18 years or older on the day of signing the informed consent, female or male.
  • - Patients must have a Karnofsky performance status of 60 or more.
  • - Patients must have limited systemic therapeutic options as per treating physician judgement.
The number of previous lines of therapies is not limited.
  • - Patients with a tumor with a targetable oncogenic driver mutation should have already been treated with a targeted agent and options must have been exhausted.
  • - Patients must have a clinical indication for surgery for probable brain metastasis.
  • - Patients will be considered eligible for the study only if the diagnosis of brain metastasis has been histologically confirmed on the sample obtained during the surgery performed after signing the informed consent form for the trial.
  • - Any type of primary cancer is allowed: breast cancer, lung cancer, melanoma, other cancers.
Patients may have several primary cancers.
  • - Patients must have adequate bone marrow, renal and hepatic function documented at screening before surgery.
  • - Women of childbearing potential, including women who had their last menstruation in the last 2 years, must have a negative urinary or serum pregnancy test.
  • - Patients must have the ability to understand the requirements of the study, provide written informed consent and authorization of use and disclosure of protected health information, and agree to abide by the study restrictions and return for the required assessments.
  • - Written informed consent for study participation must be signed and dated by the patient and the investigator prior to any study-related intervention.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • - Patients with rapidly progressive systemic disease.
  • - Patients with inability to undergo brain MRI evaluation.
  • - Patients with progressive parenchymal brain metastases with an indication for requiring whole brain radiotherapy after surgery.
Focal brain radiotherapy after surgery is allowed.
  • - Judgement by the investigator that the patient is unlikely to comply with study procedures, restrictions and requirements.
  • - Intention to become pregnant during the course of the study.
  • - Female who are pregnant.
  • - Female who are breastfeeding and who do not agree to discontinue nursing prior to the first treatment initiated during the study.
  • - Sexually active males and females of childbearing potential who are not willing to use an effective contraceptive method during the study.
Male participants who do not agree not to donate sperm.

Trial Details

Trial ID:

This trial id was obtained from ClinicalTrials.gov, a service of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, providing information on publicly and privately supported clinical studies of human participants with locations in all 50 States and in 196 countries.

NCT06620380
Phase

Phase 1: Studies that emphasize safety and how the drug is metabolized and excreted in humans.

Phase 2: Studies that gather preliminary data on effectiveness (whether the drug works in people who have a certain disease or condition) and additional safety data.

Phase 3: Studies that gather more information about safety and effectiveness by studying different populations and different dosages and by using the drug in combination with other drugs.

Phase 4: Studies occurring after FDA has approved a drug for marketing, efficacy, or optimal use.

Phase 2
Lead Sponsor

The sponsor is the organization or person who oversees the clinical study and is responsible for analyzing the study data.

University of Zurich
Principal Investigator

The person who is responsible for the scientific and technical direction of the entire clinical study.

N/A
Principal Investigator Affiliation N/A
Agency Class

Category of organization(s) involved as sponsor (and collaborator) supporting the trial.

Other
Overall Status Not yet recruiting
Countries Switzerland
Conditions

The disease, disorder, syndrome, illness, or injury that is being studied.

Brain Metastases, Brain Metastases, Adult
Arms & Interventions

Arms

Experimental: Arm 1: experimental arm, Pharmacoscopy-guided treatment

Arm 1 (experimental arm): Pharmacoscopy-guided treatment will be prescribed by the investigator according to the results of the analysis (relevant on-target effect) and per drug prescription guidelines.

Active Comparator: Arm 2: control arm

For patients randomized to the control arm, no pharmacoscopy analysis will be performed.

Interventions

Device: - Pharmacoscopy 1.0

Pharmacoscopy is currently an academically developed platform. The study is designed to investigate the clinical performance of this academic platform. In the interventional arm, the best candidate agent defined by pharmascopy will be considered to guide the therapeutic decision for each patient.

Other: - Control

The next systemic treatment after surgery will be discussed, with the investigator and at the tumor board, considering also standard histopathological and molecular analysis, including next generation sequencing, molecular profiling analysis and previous treatments received

Contact a Trial Team

If you are interested in learning more about this trial, find the trial site nearest to your location and contact the site coordinator via email or phone. We also strongly recommend that you consult with your healthcare provider about the trials that may interest you and refer to our terms of service below.

International Sites

University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland

Status

Address

University Hospital Basel

Basel, ,

Site Contact

Gregor Hutter

[email protected]

+41 61 265 38 97

Cantonal Hospital St Gallen, St Gallen, Switzerland

Status

Address

Cantonal Hospital St Gallen

St Gallen, ,

Site Contact

Marian Neidert

[email protected]

+41 71 494 11 11

University Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Status

Address

University Hospital Zurich

Zurich, ,

Site Contact

Emilie Le Rhun

[email protected]

+41 44 255 38 99

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