GUILDFORD, United Kingdom, June 11, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- ANGLE plc (AIM: AGL OTCQX: ANPCY), the specialist medtech company, is delighted to announce new results from its key opinion leader, Barts Cancer Institute (BCI), investigating the clinical use of the Parsortix system in prostate cancer patients.

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men and the fourth most common overall. More than 1.1 million cases of prostate cancer were recorded in 2012, accounting for around 8 per cent of all new cancer cases and 15 per cent in men (Source: World Cancer Research Fund International).

BCI, part of Queen Mary University of London's School of Medicine & Dentistry,  is home to world-class clinical, translational and basic scientific research and is one of the top five cancer research centres in the UK. BCI is publishing the results of the most recent phase of its work at a symposium hosted by the British Association for Cancer Research and Cancer Research UK on "Evolution and Intratumoural Heterogeneity" being held today at the Royal Society of Medicine, London.  A copy of the poster publication is available on the ANGLE website here http://www.angleplc.com/the-parsortix-system/download-files/.

The results published today come from an initial study of 52 prostate cancer patient samples of which 44 were with metastatic and 8 were with localised diseases. 

Using the Parsortix system, BCI researchers were able to successfully harvest CTCs from 100% of the patients.  The Parsortix system harvested a range of different circulating cells comprising not only CK+ cells (epithelial cells), which can be captured using traditional antibody-based capture systems, but also CK- Vimentin+ cells (mesenchymal cells).  The latter are known to play a crucial role in the process of cancer metastasis, which leads to secondary cancers - the most common cause of death from cancer - and cannot be captured using traditional antibody-based systems. 

Although it has limitations in detecting cancer, for patients known to have prostate cancer, prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels in the blood are widely used as a clinical marker to assess cancer progression. The number of mesenchymal cells harvested by the Parsortix system correlated much more strongly with PSA levels than the epithelial cells.  BCI is the first group to demonstrate the correlation between mesenchymal cells and PSA levels in prostate cancer patients.  This breakthrough research suggests that the cells harvested by the Parsortix system are clinically relevant and offers the potential for the Parsortix system to be used to provide a repeatable, non-invasive liquid biopsy for prostate cancer patients.

BCI researchers are continuing to expand the work undertaken with more patient numbers and with ongoing follow-up of the patients studied so far.  In addition they are investigating:

  • the viability of CTCs after their harvest from the Parsortix system and the potential to culture them. Culturing CTCs could provide a way to test the likely effectiveness of a proposed treatment before administering the patient with a given drug
  • the molecular biomarkers in the CTCs harvested by the Parsortix system to predict prostate cancer patient outcome and response to therapies. 

Dr Yong-Jie Lu, Reader in Medical Oncology at Barts Cancer Institute, commented:
"This work has confirmed the ability of the Parsortix system to harvest clinically relevant mesenchymal cells and that these cells correlate with the patient PSA level, the current gold standard for assessing whether the patient's prostate cancer is progressing.  We are looking forward to the next stage of the work investigating molecular biomarkers on the harvested cells and hope that this may help guide effective treatment for prostate cancer patients in the future."

ANGLE Founder and Chief Executive, Andrew Newland, commented:
"The prospect of deployment of our repeatable, non-invasive liquid biopsy in the treatment of prostate cancer patients in therapy selection and remission monitoring is exciting.  These findings are encouraging and we look forward to further developments as soon as possible."  

For further information:

www.angleplc.com 

 

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/angle-plcs-parsortix-system-harvests-ctcs-in-100-of-prostate-cancer-patients-300097334.html

SOURCE ANGLE plc

Copyright 2015 PR Newswire

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