On April 8, 2024 Adela, Inc., an innovator in blood testing for minimal residual disease monitoring and early cancer detection through a proprietary genome-wide methylome enrichment technology, reported initial results demonstrating the ability of its MRD assay to predict recurrence in head & neck cancer, at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) (Free AACR Whitepaper) Annual Meeting from April 5-10, 2024 (Press release, Adela, APR 8, 2024, View Source;neck-cancer-at-the-american-association-for-cancer-research-annual-meeting-2024-302109070.html [SID1234641902]).

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"In patients with head & neck cancer, determining the most appropriate course of action following curative intent treatment can be challenging due to the need to balance the potential side effects of treatment with the ramifications of recurrence. Furthermore, detection of recurrence is complicated by inaccuracies of medical imaging and a lack of standardized surveillance procedures", said Scott Bratman MD, PhD, Chief Innovation Officer, Adela and Radiation Oncologist and Clinician-Scientist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network. "We are highly encouraged by these initial results and the potential for a novel approach to improve care of patients with head & neck cancer."

The ability of Adela’s assay to quantify cfDNA cancer signal and predict recurrence was evaluated in individuals diagnosed with stage I-IVB human papillomavirus (HPV)-negative and HPV-positive head and neck cancer treated at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network. This training analysis included 249 plasma samples collected from 75 patients (a subset of the full cohort of >1,100 plasma samples from >300 individuals). Blood draws occurred before and after curative intent treatment, and in a subset of patients, at 12 and 24 months post-curative intent treatment. Adela’s MRD assay demonstrated the ability to identify patients more likely to recur than not, based on the blood draw following curative intent treatment (i.e., landmark), and also at the longitudinal timepoints. Significant differences in recurrence-free survival (RFS) were observed, with a hazard ratio (HR) of 10.97 (P<0.001) at the landmark timepoint, and an HR of 22.83 (P<0.001) longitudinally, when patients were stratified by MRD positivity.

"By identifying patients with head & neck cancer who are more likely to recur, our MRD test has the potential to provide clinicians with useful information that may aid in their decisions regarding the use of adjuvant therapy as well as enable recurrences to be detected and treated earlier," said Dr. Anne-Renee Hartman, Chief Medical Officer of Adela. "These initial results give us confidence that our tissue-agnostic approach to MRD detection for both HPV-positive and HPV-negative head & neck cancer can address the strong unmet need in this particular indication."

Validation results from a held-out test set from the cohort will be presented at a future meeting. Adela plans to commercialize its tissue agnostic test for minimal residual disease (MRD) monitoring in 2025.

Data will also be presented at AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper) on the analytical performance of Adela’s genome-wide methylome enrichment platform on April 9, 2024.

Presentation Details

Abstract # 2427: The development of a tissue-agnostic genome-wide methylome enrichment MRD assay for applications across the cancer care continuum for head and neck malignancies
Geoffrey Liu1
Mon Apr 8, 2024 9 am-12:30 pm PT
Section 40 Poster Board Number 23

Abstract # 5024: Analytical performance of a genome-wide methylome enrichment platform to detect minimal residual disease from plasma-derived cell-free DNA
Hestia Mellert2
Tues Apr 9, 2024 9am – 12:30pm PT
Section 40 Poster Board Number 11