Precision Medicine in Oncology®

Andre Goy, MD, MS, discusses how matching the right treatment with the right patient resides at the heart of precision medicine, but with continued interest in pursuing the molecular milieu of cancers, precision medicine has the potential to better inform pre- and post-cancer interventions as well.

Efforts to leverage targeted therapy and immunotherapy, which have been approved modalities in advanced non–small cell lung cancer, are leading to improved survival in patients with advanced and earlier-stage disease.

Andre Goy, MD, MS, discusses updates in precision medicine. 

Over the past decade in gastrointestinal cancer treatment, the acknowledgement that cancer is heterogeneous and likely polyclonal has prompted a shift from gene testing for some patients, to many patients.

Benjamin P. Levy, MD, discusses the disease-free survival benefit with adjuvant osimertinib in the phase 3 ADAURA trial.

Natalie I. U. Vokes, MD, discusses investigative biomarkers of response to checkpoint inhibitors in the field of oncology.

Implementing population-based BRCA1/2 testing is not only cost-effective in high- and upper middle–income countries but could also prevent tens of thousands of breast and ovarian cancer cases compared with the current clinical strategy, which recommends testing only for high-risk women.

Dual inhibition of both VEGFR and EGFR with the combination of apatinib and gefitinib in the first-line treatment of patients with advanced EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer demonstrated superior progression-free survival.

Entrectinib demonstrated durable intracranial activity in a small subset of patients with NTRK fusion–positive solid tumors and baseline central nervous system metastases.

Kartik Konduri, MD, discussed current treatment options that are available for patients with ALK, ROS1, and RET–positive NSCLC, as well as promising agents in the pipeline.

In our exclusive interview, Dr. Giri and Dr. Gomella discuss the rationale to create the first multidisciplinary, consensus-driven framework for prostate cancer genetic testing, the importance of having a multidisciplinary team weigh in on the recommendations, and key aspects of the guidelines that could have clinical implications for men in this space.

The FDA has approved the Oncomine Dx Target Test as a companion diagnostic to identify patients with RET fusion–positive non¬–small lung cancer who are candidates to receive the recently approved targeted therapy pralsetinib.

PARP inhibitors have fundamentally changed our therapeutic algorithms in ovarian cancer, even as their use continues to evolve.

Technological advancements are rapidly expanding the potential uses for blood-based liquid biopsies, but broad clinical adoption in cancer care hinges on improving the knowledge base of practicing oncologists and gathering prospective data to validate assays.

Manish R. Patel, DO, discusses the safety profile of entrectinib in NTRK fusion–positive solid tumors.

Nathan Pennell, MD, PhD, discusses the evolution of targeted therapies in the field of non–small cell lung cancer.

Shubham Pant, MD, discusses targeting KRAS mutations in advanced or metastatic solid tumors.

Germline genetic testing is a key component of prostate cancer treatment, and broader testing criteria combined with reduced barriers to these tests could result in better informed care, including preventive surveillance, according to data from a recent study.

The FDA has approved the FoundationOne Liquid CDx, a liquid biopsy for all solid tumors with multiple companion diagnostic indications.

Elaine Shum, MD, discusses emerging targeted therapies in EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer.

Ann H. Partridge, MD, MPH, discusses the role of genomic testing in breast cancer.

The FDA has granted a priority review designation to new drug application for tepotinib as a treatment for patient with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer whose tumors harbor a MET exon 14 skipping mutation identified via an FDA-approved test.

As precision medicine evolves in oncology, companion diagnostics are broadly and increasingly being adopted to guide treatment decisions, enabling clinicians to better and more precisely direct patients to therapies that best suit their unique genomic profiles.

In our exclusive interview, Dr. Levy discusses the challenges of targeting KRAS and highlighted some of the investigational agents directed toward KRAS G12C mutations that have emerged in the NSCLC pipeline.

A new, recently patented liquid biopsy device designed to detect small amounts of genetic and cellular material from tumors in the bloodstream of patients with early-stage, recurrent triple negative breast cancer, following neoadjuvant chemotherapy, has shown great accuracy and sensitivity.