Dr. Kris on Patient Acceptance of Mutation Testing

Mark G. Kris, MD, chief of the Thoracic Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, explains that most patients trust their physicians to use the best technology to decide the best treatment and this includes the use of genetic tests. Kris was the lead author for a multicenter study that focused on the identification of driver mutations in tumor specimens in patients with lung adenocarcinoma using two tests which he feels patients will widely accept.

Kris uses breast cancer as an example because testing for estrogen receptors and more recently HER2 has been used to determine treatment options for this disease for quite some time, whereas its use in lung cancer is still fairly new. He explains that patients accept and appreciate the results from these tests because they help guarantee the best treatment.