Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have created the first mathematical model that can predict how a cancer patient will benefit from certain immunotherapies, according to a study published in Nature.
Scientists have long sought a way to discover whether patients will respond to new checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapies and to better understand the characteristics that indicate a tumor can be successfully treated with them. The proposed mathematical model, which captures aspects of the tumor’s evolution and the underlying interactions of the tumor with the immune system, is more accurate than previous genomic biomarkers in predicting how the tumor will respond to immunotherapy.