GENOMIC TESTING

Unlike many other types of tumors, melanoma can be detected early in its progression by visual, noninvasive methods.

The poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor veliparib exhibits antitumor activity and is safe and tolerable on a continuous dosing schedule when used for the treatment of patients with BRCA-positive and BRCA-wild type tumors.

Andrew R. Allen, BM, BCh, MA, MRCP, PhD, Executive Vice President of Clinical and Pre-Clinical Development, Chief Medical Officer, Co-Founder, Clovis Oncology, discusses how patients are selected for treatment with CO-1686.

A series of papers have been published in the journal Nature in which researchers conducted detailed comparisons of the worm, fly, and human genomes using data from the ENCODE and modENCODE projects.

Johanna Bendell, MD, director of GI Cancer Research Program, associate director, Drug Development Program, Sarah Cannon Research Institute, discusses the importance of testing CRC patients for BRAF status.

Claudine Isaacs, MD, professor, medical Director, Fisher Center for Familial Cancer Research, co-director, Breast Cancer Program, Georgetown University/Lombardi Cancer Center, discusses some of the challenges physicians are facing in the field of hereditary breast cancer.

During a 2013 discussion on treating NSCLC, a group of oncologists were asked what share of cancer patients have access to molecular testing. The answers varied: One said he guessed 40% to 50%, another said "a large minority."

Last week, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced two steps it will take to ensure the safety and utility of certain diagnostic tests.

Suzanne A. W. Fuqua, PhD, professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, discusses ESR1 mutations in primary breast cancer.

Raoul S. Concepcion, MD, FACS, Urology Associates P.C., discusses the potential for the 4Kscore test as a predictor of high-grade prostate cancer.

The FDA has approved the radioactive diagnostic imaging agent Lymphoseek injection to guide sentinel lymph node biopsy in patients with cancer of the head and neck.

A cell-cycle gene array test demonstrated independent value for predicting metastatic progression after surgery for organ-confined renal cell carcinoma (RCC) of clear cell histology.

William K. Oh, MD, Chief of the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology, the Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai Medical Center, discusses the process of validating a whole-blood prognostic signature in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC).

Marcel R.M. van den Brink, MD, PhD, from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, describes a novel CLIA-certified next-generation sequencing-based assay for hematologic malignancies.

Robert Dreicer, MD, MS, professor of medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, chairman, Department of Solid Tumor Oncology, Taussig Cancer Institute, discusses combining and sequencing agents with immunotherapies for the treatment of prostate cancer.

James Mohler, MD, chair, Department of Urology, associate director, Translational Research, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, discusses sequencing agents in prostate cancer.

Michael A. Postow, MD, attending physician, Melanoma and Immunotherapeutics Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses sequencing strategies in treating patients with melanoma.

Daniel P. Petrylak, MD, director, Prostate and GU Medical Oncology, Yale Cancer Center, discusses sequencing agents in prostate cancer.

The US Supreme Court’s landmark decision last June, mandating that an individual’s genes cannot be patented, transformed the genetic testing landscape and opened the marketplace to a host of new and complicated testing options.

The most promising novel therapeutics in development for patients with breast cancer focus primarily on targeting activating mutations in combinations that are based on findings from next-generation sequencing.

A wide-ranging analysis of more than 5500 breast cancer tumors that combined genomic and protein expression testing has identified promising targets to explore for treating patients with poor prognoses, with particularly notable findings involving androgen receptor (AR) expression.

Lung cancer continues to be the leading cause of cancer-related mortality, resulting in ~1.4 million annual deaths worldwide and 160,000 deaths each year in the United States.

Franco M. Muggia, MD, professor of oncology, New York University, director, Division of Medical Oncology, New York University Medical Center, discusses the impact of BRCA mutations in ovarian cancer.

Arjun Balar, MD, assistant professor of medicine, Division of Hematology & Oncology, New York University Cancer Institute, NYU Langone Medical Center, discusses the future of bladder cancer.

Sukumar Nagendran, MD, vice president, medical affairs, Quest Diagnostics, describes BRCAvantage, a test to detect BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes.