Hi. The selection of chemosensitivity tests would depend on the type of cancer being treated, and the kind of chemotherapy drug which the doctor is contemplating on using. I don't know the situation in India (I practice in the Philippines), so I cannot tell you if the tests used by the doctors there are cost-effective. In general, testing for the tumor's sensitivity to the chemotherapy drugs is rather expensive, and is usually more commonly practiced in first-world countries like the United States or Europe. The CD DST (collagen gel droplet drug sensitivity test) is a method that has been used to test chemosensitivity in colorectal, lung and head/neck cancers. As far as I know, this test has not been incorporated in the treatment guidelines as a standard procedure in the management of these cancers.
Sir,
Thank you for the reply. As project work I am doing some reference collection on chemosensitivity methods.
It would be of very much useful for me if you could provide me the following details .
Is the selection of a particular chemsosensitivity methods depends mainly on the type of cancer? Or the stage at which it is detected?
What is the popularity of chemosensitivity among different countries ? Particularly in India
Is the procedures currently used are cost effective ?
I would like to know the popularity of CD DST method.
Thank you
Beena
Hi. Which particular "chemosensitivity test" are you referring to? There is no single laboratory procedure which can test for the sensitivity to chemotherapy of all types of tumors. In breast cancer, there's the Estrogen Receptor (ER) and Progesterone Receptor (PR) assays to determine sensitivity to hormonal treatment. There's also the HER-2 (human epidermal growth factor receptor 2) assay for determining sensitivity to Trastuzumab. Then there's the Oncotype DX which can test for sensitivity to various chemotherapy drugs. In lung cancer, there are assays for quantitative testing of epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFR), which confers sensitivity to some drugs used in lung cancer like Iressa or Tarceva. The cost of testing can range from a few hundred dollars (e.g. ER/ PR assays) to around 3800 dollars for the Oncotype DX test.