Patients with advanced cancer for whom standard treatments no longer work may benefit from off-label medicines: approved drugs that are used for a different disease than the one for which they are officially registered. This means a larger group of patients can benefit from existing treatments.
In this way, more than 1,600 patients with advanced cancer have still been given a treatment option over the past ten years. These are patients who participated in the DRUP study, a large-scale study involving several Dutch hospitals, including LUMC.
On behalf of LUMC, medical oncologist and professor Hans Gelderblom is one of the three principal investigators of the study, the results of which were published on Wednesday in the leading scientific journal Nature.
Drug based on the tumor’s DNA profile
Participants in the DRUP study receive existing cancer drugs that were originally intended for a different type of cancer. Doctors do not only look at the type of cancer, but also at the DNA profile of the tumor. Based on that, medicines are selected that may also be effective against the same genetic abnormalities, regardless of the cancer type.
Researchers emphasize that off-label treatments should not simply be tried at random, but preferably within well-designed prospective research, ideally in a European context. Only in this way can the results be properly evaluated and used to determine whether these treatments can become part of standard care.
LUMC helps make personalized cancer care more widely available
In addition to participating in the DRUP study, LUMC is also the coordinator of the European PCM4EU project, which builds on the DRUP approach. The project focuses on making personalized cancer treatment more widely available across Europe, including through knowledge sharing, better access to genetic diagnostics, and implementation in healthcare.
Medical oncologist and professor Hans Gelderblom is closely involved from LUMC. He is one of the three principal investigators of the DRUP study and coordinator of PCM4EU, as well as co-coordinator of follow-up projects such as PRIME-ROSE and JA-PCM.
The research was led by principal investigators Emile Voest (Netherlands Cancer Institute), Henk Verheul (Erasmus MC), and Hans Gelderblom (LUMC). This research was made financially possible by KWF Dutch Cancer Society and Stelvio for Life. Emile Voest’s group is part of the Oncode Institute.
