Test may predict cancer response to anemia drugs

By Deena Beasley

A genetic test may help predict whether giving cancer patients anemia drugs could make their cancer worse, U.S. researchers said on Sunday.

Over the past year and a half, eight late-stage clinical trials have shown that treatment with drugs known as erythropoiesis-stimulating agents, or ESAs, can have an adverse impact on cancer survival, the study’s lead investigator, Dr. Anthony Blau at the University of Washington, told a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.

Read the full story at Reuters.