The DRUP study

Background

Approximately 13% of patients with advanced cancer who have exhausted standard treatment options have an actionable mutation for which a targeted therapy is registered outside of the corresponding indication. For example, a patient with colorectal cancer and a BRCA mutation may not have access to drugs that are registered for treating BRCA mutations in other cancer types. The DRUP study provides these patients access to targeted therapy and investigates the effectiveness of targeted anti-cancer drugs and immunotherapy outside of their labelled indication. To achieve this, cohorts are formed consisting of a specific combination of Tumor Type, Tumor Mutation and  Drug. Since its inception in 2016 the DRUP study has enrolled more than 1300 patients in ≈250 open cohorts and various publications have been released based on the DRUP data.

Aims

The aim of this project is to elaborate the use of statistical methods within the long-standing DRUP trial. First, the pooling of information across the different cohorts will be investigated to better analyze the effectiveness of targeted therapy in DRUP. A focus will be on hierarchical models such as mixed effect models and Bayesian hierarchical models. Secondly, the absence of a control group shall be addressed by examining the application of survival models with historical data.

Team

• Prof.dr. M. Fiocco, Mathematical Institute Leiden University, Department of Biomedical Data Sciences Leiden University Medical Center & Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology 

• Prof.dr. H. Gelderblom, Department of Medical Oncology at the Leiden University Medical Centre 

• Prof.dr. E. Voest, Netherlands Cancer Institute, Division of Molecular Oncology and Immunology

DRUP website

Here is the official website of the DRUP study:  https://drupstudy.nl