UIC researchers awarded $1.2M grant for prostate cancer research

Researchers from the University of Illinois Chicago have been awarded a three-year, $1.2 million grant from U.S. Department of Defense Prostate Cancer Research Program. The grant will fund UIC's research project to leverage data science methods to study variation among patients in the effects of approved treatments for metastatic prostate cancer.

Androgens - a group of steroid hormones that play a role in male sexual development - can fuel tumor growth, and androgen deprivation therapy has long been a cornerstone of treatment for advanced prostate cancer. In the past decade and a half, two randomized clinical trials tested the effects of adding androgen receptor pathway inhibitors - abiraterone and apalutamide - to androgen deprivation therapy. Those studies, called Latitude and TITAN (Targeted Investigational Treatment Analysis of Novel Anti-androgen), showed that adding those inhibitors prolonged survival of men with metastatic prostate cancer.

But there are still questions about how well these drugs work for different people, especially because the patients in clinical trials can be quite different from those treated in everyday health care settings. That's where data science can help, according to the researchers.

"This project will provide critical information for men diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer who are starting (androgen deprivation therapy) and considering whether to add abiraterone or apalutamide to their treatment plan," said Charles Gaber, principal investigator, from the Retzky College of Pharmacy and member of the University of Illinois Cancer Center. "Patients and care providers may see the overall results from the Latitude and TITAN trials and wonder how those results translate to their unique clinical picture."

The study will reanalyze the clinical data from those two trials using cutting-edge machine-learning methods to uncover the factors that drive variability in the effectiveness of treatment. The researchers aim to use the results to develop a web-based data tool that allows users to supply factors such as age and tumor characteristics to get personalized estimates of treatment effectiveness from the trials. Then they will incorporate data from a broader population, using real-world electronic health record data, to examine the effectiveness of these regimens in routine care populations.

"The ultimate goal of our multidisciplinary project is to develop a clinical-decision support tool that will help providers select and personalize their patients' prostate cancer therapies to both optimize safety and maximize efficacy," said UIC's Dr. Natalie Reizine, a physician at UI Health, professor in the College of Medicine and Cancer Center member. "We aim to enable clinicians to tailor their treatments and incorporate clinical trial data to benefit the individual patient they are caring for."

Researchers at Northwestern University and the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, are partnering with Gaber, Reizine and Todd Lee, from the Retzky College of Pharmacy and the University of Illinois Cancer Center, on the research.