Yolofitis improves patient outcomes in hypocortisolism by measuring at the point of care
Neoadjuvant immunotherapy has become the standard of care in lung cancer, breast cancer and melanoma. With increasing numbers of patients cured from their early-stage cancer by neoadjuvant (chemo)immunotherapies, the focus on toxicity management, especially long-term toxicities, becomes of interest.
A frequent chronic immune related adverse events (irAE) is hypocortisolism, or Addison’s Disease (AD). AD is an autoimmune condition leading to reduced quality of life, cardiovascular complications, osteoporosis and decreased life expectancy for patients. Patients with AD require lifelong steroid supplementation, which currently does not align with the natural daily circadian and ultradian cortisol rhythms. A more frequent and on demand measurement could improve the quality of life of these patients, optimize their therapy and likely improve their prognosis by altering the long-term toxicities. In particular the combination of monitoring cortisol levels and early detection of inflammation and stress is a powerful tool to predict the need for steroid supplementation and to optimize treatment. This will improve quality of life, empower the patients, reduce the burden in the clinic, and potentially improve the short-term and long-term outcome of patients.
Surfix Diagnostics provides a unique photonic diagnostic platform that consists of a microfluidic test cartridge and a read-out instrument. Blinded studies on detection of the inflammation marker interleukin-6 (IL-6) have shown that the Surfix platform prototype is more sensitive than current golden standard laboratory tests. Combining multiple proprietary technologies in photonics, nanocoating, microfluidics and molecular biology, the point-of-care platform delivers extraordinarily sensitive multiplex measurements at laboratory precision. This makes the Surfix platform uniquely positioned to support a plethora of unserved biomarkers in a point-of-care setting.
In this project, NKI-AVL, Surfix Diagnostics and Wageningen University collaborate to develop a cortisol and IL-6 diagnostic point-of-care test to facilitate early hypocortisolism detection (in an optimal case before this irAE becomes chronic).
