Better treatment for patients and prevention of cancer in high-risk family members

  • Financial Contribution:

    6,4 million €

    Provided by the Ministry of Health

  • Duration:

    3 years

    Start: 3 December 2019

Abstract

As part of the Personalized Oncology Program promoted by the Ministry of Health and implemented by Alliance Against Cancer (ACC), the Gersom project was launched. This project is a multicentric study that includes 17 IRCCS participants and aims to demonstrate the feasibility of a joint diagnostic path at the time of diagnosis of cancer for the identification of altered genes in tumours (for prognostic and therapy response definition purposes) and CPGs in the germline (for mapping cancer genetic risk).

ACC has developed and validated a cost-effective gene panel that can be run quickly (<1 week) to analyze 467 altered tumour genes, including 172 CPGs. 4,000 patients with a genetic predisposition to develop tumours will be recruited; specifically, the study is aimed at patients with ovarian cancer or triple-negative breast cancer and young patients with colon cancer (<50 years) or breast cancer (<40 years).

The project has a double ambition: to better treat patients by identifying the potentially most effective drugs and preventing cancers in their high-risk family members by directing them towards dedicated prevention pathways.

Project coordinator

Ruggero De Maria Marchiano

The scientific coordinator of the project is Prof. Ruggero De Maria Marchiano, President of ACC.