'Miracle' Data Could Lead to Cancer Cures

Jan Crisitello, a 70-year-old grandmother of four, was diagnosed in 2002 with stage 4 melanoma, which kills the vast majority of its victims within five years. Although chemotherapy helped her make it past the five-year mark, by 2007 the cancer was growing again. Desperate, she joined a 29-patient trial of a drug being developed by Pfizer. The drug was a failure for almost all of the patients, and Pfizer spokeswoman Sally Beatty says it has been “deprioritized for further development.” For Crisitello, the drug worked, and her cancer is in full remission. Now oncologists are studying her DNA to determine how her genome may have made her unusually responsive to the drug. “I feel very fortunate,” she says. “It would make me feel good if they found out why and could replicate that for other people.”

As many as 1 in 10 patients respond well in clinical trials of experimental medicines that U.S. regulators end up rejecting, according to the National Cancer Institute (NCI). To understand why these patients had such a response, researchers are beginning to use DNA sequencing technology to determine if the patients they call “exceptional responders” carry gene variations that can lead to better targeted therapies, including new treatments and the reconsideration of others.