A Recipe for Successful Therapy Written in DNA
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is the most common type of cancer in children, but today it also has one of the highest cure rates in pediatric oncology, thanks to advances in chemotherapy and a better understanding of genetics and individual responses to drugs. However, the same drug does not affect every patient in the same way – genetic differences can influence how the body responds to treatment and what dose can be safely tolerated. This study showed that variants in the ITPA and NUDT15 genes may influence an individual patient’s response to therapy, highlighting the potential of genetic markers to guide more precise treatment adjustments. The results also suggest that considering multiple genetic factors simultaneously, rather than analyzing individual genes, could help tailor therapy more precisely to each patient in the future. Research of this kind paves the way for the broader use of pharmacogenetic testing and personalized medicine, with the aim of tailoring treatment and drug dosing to each individual patient, thereby improving the safety and effectiveness of therapy.
The study was conducted in collaboration with four institutions from Croatia: the Health Center of Primorsko-Goranska County, Jadran-Galenski Laboratorij, the Children’s Hospital Zagreb, and the University of Rijeka. The research is part of the PharmGenHub project, funded by the European Comission.