Medaffcon’s study was the first of its kind in Finland. It demonstrated that lung cancer is at the forefront of medical advances, with genetic tests being routinely used, especially for NSCLC patients.
The field is developing rapidly. New genetic factors, targeted therapies, and immuno-oncological treatments are entering the market quickly, which are expected to lead to better treatment outcomes. This results in a highly complex and constantly changing treatment landscape. Therefore, understanding the subgroups of NSCLC patients and their outcomes in real-world settings is increasingly important.
The prognosis for non-small cell lung cancer remains poor despite the improvement in the prognosis for advanced NSCLC due to targeted therapies and immuno-oncological treatments. The need for personalised treatments is emphasised because genetic mutations significantly impact disease progression.
The study indicates that NSCLC imposes a substantial economic burden. This is influenced by the complexity of treatment, the need for long-term care, the use of new and expensive treatment modalities, and the impact of the disease and treatments on patients’ ability to work and quality of life.
According to Riikka Mattila, PhD, Scientific Advisor at Medaffcon, genetic mutations, such as the KRAS mutation, play a central role in developing non-small cell lung cancer.
“Lung cancer is at the forefront of personalized treatment development. Therefore, gene panels are important. It is essential to test all patients. In this study, it was found that some patients were tested while others were not,” says Riikka Mattila.
The study identified 601 NSCLC patients, 64 % of whom were tested for genetic changes. Of those, 9 % had a KRAS G12C mutation. Common characteristics included younger age and smoking.
“In our analysis, these patients fared worse and had higher resource use. These factors correlated: worse disease required more treatment,” says Riikka Mattila from the Medaffcon.
Patients with KRAS mutations were often at a metastatic stage at the time of diagnosis, meaning the disease had progressed significantly and spread to other parts of the body, making it more challenging to manage. The disease is aggressive, and treatment prognoses are generally poor.
KRAS G12C, in particular, stood out from other subgroups. These patients had a shorter overall survival and used more healthcare resources than others.
In summary, the study’s results highlight the significant impact of KRAS mutations on clinical outcomes and the use of healthcare resources, especially emphasising the KRAS G12C mutation.
The study showed that lung cancer treatment is at the forefront of medical advances, with genetic tests and targeted therapies being routinely used, particularly for NSCLC patients.
The Medaffcon team included data scientists Anna Anttalainen and Samuli Tuominen and scientific advisor Riikka Mattila, PhD. The work is always done as a team, with the goal that the entire team is involved from the beginning of the project. If necessary, the expertise of the entire Medaffcon team is available.
Finland is also an exceptional country for research.
“We can combine all clinical data with social and healthcare data from deep genetic data in Finland. This cannot be done elsewhere,” says Riikka Mattila, Scientific Advisor and PhD.
The prognosis for patients with multiple myeloma (MM) has improved as treatments have advanced, but the disease remains incurable. The prevalence of the disease is increasing in Finland as the population gets older. This is evident from a recently published nationwide retrospective study based on real-world evidence (RWE).
The adoption of new diabetes medications in Finland was active between 2012 and 2019, according to an RWE (Real World Evidence) study published in May 2024. The study was conducted by Medaffcon in collaboration with the pharmaceutical company Sanofi.
In the coming years, breakthroughs in neurological and psychiatric drug research are expected to change treatment practices and significantly improve patients’ quality of life. Medaffcon is contributing to this development by conducting, for example, RWE studies (Real World Evidence).
Scientific Advisor
PhD
Riikka joined Medaffcon in February 2021. She has a wide-ranging experience from different therapy areas from atherosclerosis and birth asphyxia to neurodegeneration. She has more than 15 years of experience in research, three of which in Max Planck Institute in Germany. Her PhD thesis from 2011 focused on cholesterol metabolism.
Riikka’s strenghts include broad know-how and interest in diverse therapy areas, as well as enthusiasm and experience in both written and verbal scientific communication. At Medaffcon she enjoys varied projects and effectiveness of research.
Real world evidence fascinates Riikka because there is so much data, and more accumulating all the time, and most of this data is unused. There is potential for findings to support clinicians and the pharmaceutical industry, as well as alleviate the lives of patients. She is also happy that decisions in health care are increasingly evidence based.
Sr. Data Scientist
Data Scientist
MSc (Statistics)
Samuli joined Medaffcon in November 2018. He acquired a master’s degree in Statistics at the University of Helsinki, specializing in Bioinformatics in September 2018. Before joining Medaffcon, Samuli had two years’ worth of experience in research as a research assistant at the University of Helsinki, where he contributed to unraveling the genetic and epigenetic background of psychological characteristics (Depsy-group).
Samuli is especially interested in producing influential research data based on information on real-world patients. He is also interested in applying varying statistical and machine learning methods. Samuli has a broad theoretical and methodological understanding, as well as experience in working with big data. He is a problem solver and has an analytical take on work.
“I see that the health sector is being transformed by digitalization. I am excited to further develop the new opportunities made possible by the automated collection of patient data”.
Data Scientist
MSc (Tech.)
Anna joined Medaffcon’s analytics team in the fall of 2021. She has a master’s degree in Bioinformation Technology from Aalto University, and her studies focused primarily on mathematical modeling and machine learning. She has worked at Aalto University’s Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering as a research assistant, as a teacher in a mathematical modeling course, and in the last years before Medaffcon as a data scientist in a startup developing a medical device.
Anna has a strong background in the application of statistics and especially machine learning methods to various datasets. Anna also has experience in conducting research, all the way from collecting data to analyzing the results and scientific writing. She is particularly interested in solving real-world problems faced by healthcare and medicine using mathematical modeling methods and artificial intelligence.
“The constantly increasing amount of health data, combined with the modern computational capacity and evolving modeling methods, create enormous potential for findings that could hardly be detected by purely manual examination.”