GUILDFORD, United Kingdom,
April 21, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- ANGLE
plc (AIM:AGL OTCQX:ANPCY), the specialist medtech company, is
delighted to announce that the Medical University of Vienna, one of its key opinion leaders, has
published highly encouraging results in support of the use of
ANGLE's Parsortix system in the detection of ovarian cancer.
Further to the announcement on 27 January
2015, the Medical University of Vienna has extended the work undertaken and
published results from its work with the Parsortix system at the
American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2015 being
held in Philadelphia
("AACR"). AACR is one of the world's largest and most
influential cancer conferences. Following the results
announced in January, the Medical University of Vienna submitted a late-breaking abstract and
we are extremely pleased that this was accepted for publication as
a poster at the conference, which is released today.
Professor Robert Zeillinger and Dr
Eva Obermayr are attending the
conference to support the poster.
The poster can be downloaded from the ANGLE website here
http://www.angleplc.com/the-parsortix-system/download-files/.
The poster significantly extends the work announced in January in
terms of the number of patients analysed, the types of cancers
considered and the performance achieved.
The study evaluated a total of 65 patients, comprising 42 cancer
patients and 23 healthy normal volunteers. The cancer patients
consisted of 24 ovarian cancer, 6 cervical cancer, 5 endometrial
cancer and 7 breast cancer cases. The analysis of 7 RNA
markers yielded 100% specificity, which indicates no false
positives, a major problem with existing techniques. The
sensitivity of ovarian cancer was 80% at the point of diagnosis and
78% at relapse, which compares favourably to the 24.5% sensitivity,
which is the best that has been achieved with other circulating
tumour cell ("CTC") systems.
The important new data shows that a sensitivity of 71% was
achieved with the metastatic breast cancer patients, which is more
than twice as high as achieved in studies using other CTC
systems.
To improve the sensitivity further, the Medical University of
Vienna reanalysed the RNA
information using 30 RNA markers with the thresholds set for 100%
specificity. So far this work has been completed for 13 of
the cancer patients. The addition of 23 further RNA markers
yielded an increased sensitivity level averaging 92% across all the
cancer types. Notably the sensitivity and specificity for the
7 ovarian cancer patients that were re-analysed were both 100% at
diagnosis and at relapse. This meant that all the ovarian
cancer patients were correctly identified using the Parsortix blood
test and there were no false positives or false negatives. Larger
sample sizes will be needed to complete optimisation and confirm
these improved results.
With this new highly sensitive approach, the Medical University
of Vienna undertook analysis of a
woman at high risk of developing ovarian and breast cancer as a
result of BRCA1/2 mutation. The woman appeared healthy, had
no symptoms and conventional diagnosis including ultrasound and the
CA-125 serum tumour marker indicated that she was disease-free.
However, like Angelina Jolie, the
woman elected to undergo risk-reducing surgery to remove her
ovaries. The Parsortix blood sample taken prior to surgery
indicated that the woman was positive for ovarian cancer. This was
initially thought to be a false positive. However, contrary to all
the medical expectations and results from conventional diagnosis,
when the surgery was undertaken the woman was in fact found to have
ovarian cancer.
This is only one case but it demonstrates the exceptional
sensitivity of the Parsortix system and may provide a monitoring
option for the approximately 1 in 380 women worldwide who are
BRCA1/2 positive and at high risk of developing cancer.
The Medical University of Vienna is now progressing a multi-centre
prospective clinical study in ovarian cancer, which is expected to
take around 18 months to complete. ANGLE is supporting this
effort as a top priority.
ANGLE's Parsortix system together with the RNA marker panel has
the potential to help inform clinical decision-making for ovarian
cancer patients in:
- Detection of cancer in high risk or genetically pre-disposed
patients (detection)
- Monitoring therapy and selection of therapies in treatment of
ovarian cancer patients (therapy monitoring)
- Monitoring of ovarian cancer patients in remission for early
detection of relapse (remission monitoring)
ANGLE estimates that the ovarian cancer sales potential for the
Parsortix system in Europe and
the United States would be in
excess of £300 million per annum.
Dr Eva Obermayr, Principal
Investigator at the Medical University of Vienna, commented:
"The Parsortix technology contributes to the unprecedented
specificity and sensitivity of the overall approach, by providing a
high purity CTC sample. Parsortix is a label-free technology, and
as such may become the gold standard for ovarian cancer
diagnosis. By combining the Parsortix technology with qPCR
analysis, we achieved an unprecedented high detection rate of
cancer, even in early stage patients, where conventional diagnostic
methods failed."
Professor Robert Zeillinger,
Head of the Molecular Oncology Group at the Medical University of
Vienna, commented:
"It is now evident that the Parsortix system has wide
application not just in ovarian cancer but in breast cancer and
other gynaecological cancers as well. We are delighted to be
working with ANGLE to bring this new capability to our patients as
soon as possible."
ANGLE Founder and Chief Executive, Andrew Newland, commented:
"The prospect of a simple blood test for cancer detection with
such high sensitivity and specificity is extremely exciting.
The results published today by Medical University of Vienna substantiate the early findings in
ovarian cancer and extend the opportunity into breast cancer and
other gynaecological cancers."
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For further
information:
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www.angleplc.com
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To view the original version on PR Newswire,
visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/angle-plc-updates-results-on-ovarian-cancer-study-300069224.html
SOURCE ANGLE plc