medresearch: Researchers Develop “MAGIC Algorithm” to Predict...

[Health and Medicine]

medresearch:

Researchers Develop “MAGIC Algorithm” to Predict Whether Bone Marrow Transplant Patients May Die From Common Complication

Researchers at Mount Sinai Health System have discovered a way to predict whether blood cancer patients who received a bone marrow transplant will develop graft-versus-host disease, a common and often lethal complication.

The study, which involved 11 cancer centers internationally, used blood samples from almost 1,300 bone marrow transplant patients and found that two proteins (ST2 and REG3a) present in blood drawn a week after a transplant can predict whether a patient will develop a lethal version of graft-versus-host disease. Scientists at the Mount Sinai Acute GVHD International Consortium (MAGIC) created an algorithm, dubbed the “MAGIC algorithm,” that determines a patient’s risk of developing the disease by measuring concentrations of these proteins.

The research was published in JCI (The Journal of Clinical Investigation) Insight.

“The MAGIC algorithm gives doctors a roadmap to save many lives in the future. This simple blood test can determine which bone marrow transplant patients are at high risk for a lethal complication before it occurs,” says James L.M. Ferrara, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, Oncological Sciences and Medicine, Hematology and Medical Oncology at The Tisch Cancer Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Co-director of MAGIC. “It will allow early intervention and potentially save many lives.”

Read more

Funding: The study was supported by grants P01 CA03942 and P30 CA106521 from the National Cancer Institute, an American Cancer Society Clinical Research Professorship (to Dr. Ferrara) and a Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Clinical Research Mentorship.

Raise your voice in support of expanding federal funding for life-saving medical research by joining the AAMC’s advocacy community.

Via