Using Metabolomic Signatures for Risk-Stratification and Personalized Treatment of Bladder Cancer
Abstract
This project will address the Fiscal Year 2020 (FY20) Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program (PRCRP) Translational Team Science Award Area of Emphasis of interventions to improve quality of life for cancer patients and/or survivors. Scientific Objective and Rationale: All cells in the body utilize metabolism to convert nutritional sources, such as fat, protein, or carbohydrates into energy and cellular building blocks for the tissues to grow and survive. It has been well understood that cancer cells not only require a higher rate of metabolism, or nutritional turnover, to survive and grow uncontrollably, but that the way cancer cell metabolism functions is different than normal cell metabolism. In bladder cancer, tumors tend to favor sugars such as glucose, and more aggressive tumors tend to be more reliant on this source. We utilize this information to investigate how the study of cellular metabolism, known as metabolomics, can help guide and improve the diagnosis and treatment of bladder cancer. Specifically, in this project we believe that understanding how cancer cell metabolism is functioning can give us insight as to how aggressive that cancer is. Furthermore, changes in metabolism due to treatments such as chemotherapy can provide early insights as to how an individual tumor is responding to that treatment. Traditionally, the effectiveness of a chemotherapy is measured by starting treatment and waiting a few weeks to months to see if the tumors are shrinking. By utilizing cancer metabolomics, the early insight into cancer metabolic function may allow for more rapid decision-making and moving on from ineffective treatments sooner. Applicability of the Research: This project should help bladder cancer patients, in particular those with more aggressive tumors likely to cause them long-term harm. It would help them by making it easier to identify which patients are particularly at risk, while providing physicians early feedback whether the treatments being tried are working. We believe that if this project is successful, the methods and techniques used in this project are already commercially available, and widespread dissemination should be feasible within a few years. This project is focused solely on the PRCPR Topic Area of bladder cancer, and if successful will be likely to make potentially practice-altering changes to that Topic Area. FY20 PRCRP Military Health Focus Area: This project focuses on the PRCRP Topic Area of bladder cancer and Military Health Focus of Mission Readiness: Gaps in cancer prognosis and treatment which may impact mission readiness and the health and well-being of military members, Veterans, their beneficiaries, and the general public. As described above, the demonstration of the potential of metabolomics to help guide bladder cancer diagnosis and treatment would enable the physicians to better guide patients on how their cancer is likely to behave and if they are seeing successful response to new treatments being attempted to control the cancer. Relevance to Active-Duty Service Members, Veterans, and Other Military Beneficiaries: The Baltimore VA Medical Center is a collaborator on this grant to engage VA researchers and patients. We expect approximately half the patients in this study will come from the VA population. The military and Veteran population is disproportionately impacted by bladder cancer, as the risk that someone associated with a history in the military has a 50% higher chance of getting bladder cancer compared to the general public. Furthermore, the Veterans who do get bladder cancer are one in three times less likely to get the chemotherapy they optimally should have gotten to treat the cancer compared to the general public. This project will address issues that are affecting this population greatly.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Dec 05, 2021
- Source ID
- W81XWH2110612
Entities
People
- Mohummad Siddiqui
Organizations
- United States Army
- University of Maryland, Baltimore