VIDEO: Genomic profiling in patients with metastatic breast cancer
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CHICAGO — Healio spoke with Nikhil Wagle, MD, about his educational session on the role genomic profiling and treatment decisions in metastatic breast cancer at ASCO Annual Meeting.
“The goal of the talk was really to think through, today and in the future, what can clinicians do with the results of, in particular, DNA multigene panel sequencing of tumor tissue,” Wagle, a medical oncologist at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, told Healio.
Wagle noted that the main takeaways from the session were the reasons for completing tumor genomic profiling, which include the development of new therapeutic options for breast cancer.
He also discussed the use of off-label therapies in metastatic breast cancer and stressed that “the preference is to use off-label therapy in the context of a trial, even though there are rare anecdotes of success of using off-label therapy for genomic indications.”
Wagle also noted another “area of great interest” in genetic profiling: cell-free DNA.
He explained that it is an “incredibly exciting technology that allows us to do genomic profiling or prognostication or early detection by looking at a blood sample and not necessarily relying on a tumor biopsy.”
However, he explained that while this technology can be used to determine treatment options for patients, additional research is needed.
“To really do this right, we are going to need to continue to do prospective profiling of metastatic tumor biopsies in cell-free DNA going forward,” Wagle said, “, reflecting [on] modern treatment regimens so that we understand what cancer looks like today and couple this with open data sharing as many institutions and organizations are doing, which together will help researchers identify more biomarkers of response and resistance and develop new treatments and treatment strategies.”
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