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Watch Dr. David Lui interview Professor Sheila K. Krishnadath about the approval of a research project focusing on biomarkers. The grant funded ENDEAVOR Consortium project is the culmination of many years of research looking at biomarkers as a means of making clinical decisions for managing Barrett’s esophagus. Up until now this research has been conducted solely in The Netherlands. Through the grant they now have the opportunity to undertake multicenter studies in several high-risk areas of the world, implementing biomarkers in clinical decision making. Through this research the team hopes to identify which patients are high risk and provide a method for tracking their progression.

Project Challenge

Currently it is impossible to predict which of the treated BE patients will have stable disease and which will recur or progress to invasive cancer. As a consequence all treated patients need to remain in frequent endoscopic surveillance. This leads to over-treatment of a large group of BE patients and under-treatment of those with more aggressive disease. There is a low-cost effectiveness of endoscopic therapies, low quality of life of patients and poor satisfaction of care providers. An accurate risk stratification method for early AEC in BE patients is therefore an unmet clinical need.

Project Goals

The ambition of the ENDEAVOR consortium is to implement an innovative risk stratification method, which encompasses minimally invasive cell collection supplemented by single cell genomic analysis to address this specific need. Taking into account patient characteristics, gender dimensions, an optimal model will be tested in a randomized controlled prospective trial. Future implementation of this method will reduce health care costs, increase quality of life and satisfaction of health care providers. This action is part of the Cancer Mission cluster of projects on Diagnostics and Treatment (diagnostics).

Learn more at endeavoreu.com