AI-powered robots boost accuracy of cancer drug testing

Such “persister” cells are rare – as few as one in a thousand tumor cells — and difficult to identify, but they can seed ​cancer recurrences.

Working with lung cancer samples, the researchers identified nearly 10,000 cellular variations that could help a cancer cell “escape” the ​effects of treatment.

They wanted to test varying dosages of drugs that had already been flagged as ⁠potential treatments for persistent lung cancer cells, but the tests would have required 10,000 week-long experiments.

Instead, they built a robotic platform, with ​thousands of miniature tumors sitting in laboratory dishes inside controlled incubators. The robot arm moved the dishes between experimental stations.

Nine of 94 ​tested drugs consistently showed some efficacy, suggesting that persister cells may share common vulnerabilities even if they emerged in patients receiving different drugs, the researchers said in a report published in Science Advances.

“We expected each tumor to behave as its own special case,” senior study author Steve Altschuler of UC San Francisco ​said in a statement.

“Instead, we found patterns that held up across many different samples, suggesting there may be underlying rules that can ​help predict which therapies are most likely to work.”

ARTERY-BLOCKING INJECTIONS EASE KNEE ARTHRITIS

In severe knee osteoarthritis, blocking abnormal blood vessels with a gelatin-based substance provides ‌significant, lasting ⁠pain relief and functional improvement, according to data from a German study.

In an arthritic knee, abnormal vessels build up around the joint and drive inflammation and pain. Performing a procedure known as genicular artery embolization (GAE), a radiologist guides a thin catheter directly to each affected vessel and injects tiny particles to block it, calming the inflammation and easing the pain without surgery.

“For many patients with knee osteoarthritis, ​there is a real treatment ​gap today,” study leader Dr. ⁠Florian Nima Fleckenstein of Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin said in a statement.

“Conservative measures such as intra-articular injections no longer provide sufficient relief, but joint replacement is not an option for medical or personal reasons,” he ​explained.

At a hospital in Germany, 114 women and 80 men whose osteoarthritis-related knee pain had not ​responded to at ⁠least three months of standard treatment underwent GAE, including 45 who had the procedure in both knees.

On the Numeric Rating Scale (a 0-to-10 measure of pain intensity), scores dropped from 7 at baseline to 4 at six weeks and to 3 at follow-ups of six and 12 months, ⁠according to ​a report in Radiology.

At 12 months, other osteoarthritis-related symptoms and quality of life also ​showed significant, clinically meaningful improvements.

“We believe these results carry real weight because they come from real-world data,” Fleckenstein said. “Our participants are exactly the patients that physicians encounter ​every day in their practices.”