Andrés López, professor at the Center for Genetic and Genomic Research at UTE University, together with 11 scientists from Latin America, conducted a study on precision medicine and its benefits in patients suffering from cancer.
The research consisted of analyzing the DNA of cancer patients, with the objective of knowing which are the genetic alterations that facilitate the development of the disease.
The study analyzed patients with cancer of 30 populations, located in 11 countries of the region.
From that investigation, it was determined that certain pharmaceutical compounds are more effective -for the population of Latin America- in the fight against malignant cells, but they do not affect healthy cells.
That is, they allow focusing the treatments on specific points (tumors). Hence the name of precision medicine.
The study found that one of the factors to consider in the Latin American population is that its genetics is what is known as tri-hybrid, that is, it has genes Europeans, Native Americans and Africans.
The idea of this research is to discover “what drugs have the ability to effectively fight the disease (…) And give a better quality of life to people who suffer from it, ”says López.
The researcher ensures that The treatment is effective at any stage of the diseaseHowever, he says that in the case that a metastasis (more advanced grade of cancer) has developed, it is more complicated because there are more organs involved.
Another objective of the research is to create clinical guides with closer genetic information, says López. The objective of this is to obtain better results in patients.
“The clinical guidelines are brought from Europe or the United States, where the genetic profile is not the same,” adds the researcher.
Lopez says that the implementation of a personalized treatment would be a great achievement in public health issues, “but that it is necessary to invest more in deepening the studies.”
“In the UTE we have a massive sequencer, where you can do this type of DNA studies, but we do not serve patients. It is only for scientific research. ”
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