Dr. Basu Roy on Addressing Barriers to Biomarker Testing in Lung Cancer

Upal Basu Roy, PhD, MPH, vice president of research, LUNGevity, discusses addressing barriers to biomarker testing in lung cancer.

During the 19th Annual Winter Lung Cancer Conference^®, a program hosted by the Physicians’ Education Resource^®, LLC, Dr Basu Roy and Benjamin P. Levy, MD, of Johns Hopkins Medicine, gave a presentation on barriers to biomarker testing and potential solutions to bridge these gaps.

Currently, biomarker-driven therapies are approved for 9 genetic alterations in lung cancer, Basu Roy says. Additionally, PD-L1 is a biomarker for immunotherapy. Biomarker testing is critical in lung cancer because it is necessary to match patients with the right therapy.

However, several challenges limit the utility of biomarker testing, including time to testing results, tissue acquisition, cost, accessibility, and testing platform selection, Basu Roy explains. Notably, the choice of platform is an important factor for biomarker testing because some of the platforms are more sensitive for certain alterations compared with others.

Ultimately, the field of targeted therapy is becoming increasingly complex​. To ensure patients receive optimal therapy in this evolving landscape, the community should focus on working together to address some of these barriers, Basu Roy concludes.