The Targeted Agent and Profiling Utilization Registry (TAPUR) Study

Many research studies are done to try to find the best way to treat patients with cancer. Researchers are working on new anticancer agents that are targeted to the genes in a person’s tumor. Genes are the basic “instruction book” for the cells that make up our bodies and are made out of DNA. DNA contains information that determines things such as eye and hair color. DNA is made up of long strands of repeating letters that form a code. The order of these letters in DNA is important. In the same way that a spelling mistake in a word could change its meaning (for example, mean and meat), a single change in the order of the letters that make up DNA can lead to a change in how the body works, which may lead to disease, including cancer. Deciding which treatments to use against a specific patient’s cancer is challenging. The goal of this study is to observe what happens when certain cancer drugs that target specific changes in a tumor’s DNA are used to treat tumors that have those DNA changes. In clinical practice, the use of these types of drugs is called targeted therapy. A targeted therapy delivers a treatment that is aimed at a specific molecular feature of the cancer cell. The cancer cell being targeted contains a change in the DNA that results in the production of abnormal proteins. These proteins let the cancer cells grow uncontrollably or prevent the body from eliminating the cancer cells. The targeted therapy prevents the abnormal proteins from stimulating the growth of the cancer. Your personal doctor ordered a laboratory test on some cells from your cancer that examined the DNA of your cancer. Based on the results of that test, your study doctor, with information from the research team, will determine whether a drug available in this study might be one that targets a molecular abnormality in your cancer.

Are you Eligible? (Inclusion Criteria)

• You are an adult patient (at least 18 years of age or older)
• You have been diagnosed with an advanced cancer that has not responded to or
• has stopped responding to at least one kind of treatment, or that has no
• standard therapy.