You might have noticed an uptick in the number of interpretations associated with hematological cancers within the Golden Helix CancerKB database over the past several months. This is because the CancerKB curation team has been focused on bolstering our drug sensitivity, diagnostic, and prognostic interpretations.

This project has had the team reading through the NCCN Guidelines, WHO Guidelines and International Consensus Classification in detail to identify relevant biomarkers per cancer type and parse out what role that biomarker plays in diagnosing a patient or in patient prognosis. In blood cancers, this is particularly important as, in some cases, the presence of a single biomarker can be the difference in diagnosis or prognosis for one cancer subtype from another. For instance, acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with CEBPA mutation is a distinct subtype of AML and specifically notes that biallelic mutations and single mutations in the bZIP domain are associated with favorable prognosis.

In addition to the hematological diagnostic and prognostic interpretations, we have incorporated all drug sensitivities from not only the FDA but now also everything from the NCCN Guidelines. This includes disease-level therapies and biomarker-specific targeted therapies for all hematological cancers.

Since there are so many guidelines for hematological cancers, this will be an ongoing project to create CancerKB diagnostic and prognostic interpretations for all hematological malignancies in addition to solid tumors. This year, the team has focused on creating interpretations for the most prominent and detailed hematological cancers: B-cell lymphoma, acute lymphoid leukemia, acute myeloid leukemia, myelodysplastic syndromes, myeloproliferative neoplasms, and chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

All of these interpretations will be available just in time for the Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) 2024 Conference! If you are interested in learning more about CancerKB or VSClinical, please visit us here and request a demo.