GenomeDx Biosciences has announced its data presented at the 56th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) shows significant evidence of the capacity of the Decipher^® Prostate Cancer Classifier to predict which patients may benefit from radiotherapy after prostate surgery.

The Decipher^® Prostate Cancer Classifier is an experimental device that by assessing the activity of multiple genomic markers associated with metastatic disease, can directly measure a patient’s biological risk of developing metastatic prostate cancer.

In a study titled “Validation of a genomic classifier for predicting metastasis following post-operative radiation therapy in high-risk prostate cancer,” presented at the ASTRO meeting, the results from a validation study of Decipher use in 188 patients from Thomas Jefferson University and Mayo Clinic who underwent prostate surgery between 1990 and 2009 was demonstrated.

The results showed that Decipher improved diagnostic value, allowing a clear distinction between those at high risk of metastasis when compared to other available clinical tools.

The researchers observed that 42.5% of patients classified as average and high-risk according to the CAPRA-S scores (a commonly used risk classifier), were reclassified as low risk upon Decipher test results.

Importantly, 96% of Decipher low risk patients were metastasis free within five years of surgery.

Additionally, Decipher can determine which patients will benefit more from adjuvant radiation therapy (ART) instead of salvage radiation therapy (SRT), since researchers observed a 17% difference in metastasis at 5 years of the adjuvant (6%) compared to the salvage (23%) arm after surgery, and an 80% reduction in toxic side effects for high-risk patients who received ART compared to SRT.

“The genomic classifier used in this study was able to classify patients at high risk of metastasis and predict patients most likely to benefit from adjuvant radiation therapy more accurately than the clinical tools we use today,” Robert Den, M.D., Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology and Cancer Biology at Thomas Jefferson University said in a company press release. “Integration of genomic test results into clinical practice can often give physicians additional insight into the aggressiveness of cancer and increase confidence in the selection of therapy.”