Method for predicting breast cancer patient response to combination therapy

Abstract

A mass-spectral method is disclosed for determining whether breast cancer patient is likely to benefit from a combination treatment in the form of administration of a targeted anti-cancer drug in addition to an endocrine therapy drug. The method obtains a mass spectrum from a blood-based sample from the patient. The spectrum is subject to one or more predefined pre-processing steps. Values of selected features in the spectrum at one or more predefined m/z ranges are obtained. The values are used in a classification algorithm using a training set comprising class-labeled spectra and a class label for the sample is obtained. If the class label is 'Poor', the patient is identified as being likely to benefit from the combination treatment. In a variation, the 'Poor' class label predicts whether the patient is unlikely to benefit from endocrine therapy drugs alone, regardless of the patient's HER2 status.