Four-way collaboration aims to improve clinical decision-making in the treatment of colon cancer

EKF Diagnostics subsidiary, Selah Genomics, has announced a major, four-way collaboration with Greenville Health System (GHS, South Carolina), DecisionQ Corporation (Virginia), and BD (Becton Dickinson and Company, New Jersey). Expected to last 18 months, the collaboration aims to unite classic clinical annotations with proprietary next generation sequencing (NGS) technology and artificial intelligence-based decision support algorithms in order to improve clinical decision support in the treatment of colon cancer patients. More than eight out of ten US patients are treated in the community, and as many as 60 percent of all patients with solid tumours do not respond to first-line treatment. This results in further treatment cycles, higher cost, elevated toxicity and, perhaps most importantly, lost time. A tool that significantly improves the prognostication for patients by bringing centre of excellence expertise to any clinical setting is therefore highly desirable. Using its PrecisionPath NGS technology, Selah Genomics will first determine the genetic profiles of tumour samples provided by the Institute for Translational Oncology Research, which is part of GHS’s Cancer Institute.  The samples, from colon cancer patients with known outcomes, will be provided with full clinical annotation. DecisionQ will employ its advanced machine-learning platform to integrate genetic profile data with clinical annotations to produce a model that will improve clinical decisions related to the treatment of colon cancer patients. The research project is being funded in part by BD in return for the first opportunity to license the technology should the collaboration be a success. After the initial collaboration, a clinical trial is planned to validate the research and affirm the effectiveness of the new system as a clinical decision support tool for the community-based setting.

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