SINGAPORE
- A Singapore-based team researching the
most common type of liver cancer has been awarded a $7.5 million grant to
continue its studies, it was announced on Wednesday.
Professor
Pierce Chow, a senior consultant surgeon with National Cancer Centre Singapore
(NCCS) is leading a multi-disciplinary team comprising clinicians and
researchers from several institutions to carry out in-depth studies on the
genomics and immunology of liver cancer.
A pilot
study into the most common type of liver cancer, Hepatocellular Carcinoma or
HCC, has found significant heterogeneity within tumours.This means different
parts of the same cancer may have different genetic mutations or produce
different immune response.
It
explains why current approaches to drug development in HCC have not been
fruitful, according to Professor Pierce Chow.
The team
has been awarded a $7.5 million grant under the TCR Flagship Programme grant by
Singapore's National Medical Research Council (NMRC).
Its
research will involve five centres from Singapore and the region and start in
the third quarter of this year. The study will be conducted using tumour
samples from 100 patients.
The
effort could enable doctors to predict the outcome of therapies and help them
select appropriate treatments, said Prof Chow.
"Through
this translational clinical research, we hope to find an answer to the shortage
of efficacious therapies and the challenges of bringing precision medicine to
patients with HCC," said Prof Chow.
The team
aims to create customised therapies for individual liver cancer patients within
the next five years.
In
Singapore, 500 new liver cancer patients are diagnosed each year.
It is the
fourth most common cancer among men in Singapore. Between 2010 and 2014, 2,254
men were diagnosed with it. It is less common in women and is not within the
top 10 cancers in women.
Between
2010 and 2014, 2,516 people died from this form of cancer.
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