GENOMIC TESTING

Updated recommendations for HER2 testing in breast cancer have been released by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the College of American Pathologists (CAP).

Tony S.K. Mok, BMSc, MD, FRCPC, professor, Department of Clinical Oncology, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital Hong Kong, China, discusses different plasma testing approaches for patients with lung cancer.

Jeffrey S. Weber, MD, PhD, discusses testing for genetic mutations in patients with melanoma.

Meredith C. Henderson, PhD, Head, R&D, Provista Diagnostics, describes the dtectDx Breast test.

Aditya Bardia, MD, MPH, Attending Physician, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, gives an overview of the Snapshot assay for breast cancer.

Tamoxifen significantly lowered the risk of contralateral or secondary breast cancer by more than half in patients with BRCA1/2 mutations.

The US Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling that an individual’s genes cannot be patented, together with Angelina Jolie’s announcement of her prophylactic double mastectomy, have focused much attention on cancer genetic testing.

Jane E. Churpek, MD, medical oncologist, hematologist, The University of Chicago, discusses the ATM, CHEK2, and PTEN genes in breast cancer.

Researchers at the NCI have developed the most comprehensive analysis of coding variants in the most frequently studied human tumor cell lines in cancer research.

Jane E. Churpek, MD, describes the BROCA genetic assay, uses targeted genomic capture and next-generation sequencing to analyze a panel of 42 genes.

The US Supreme Court ruled that patents held on a test for genetic mutations associated with breast cancer is not eligible for patent protection.

Data from the French National Cancer Institute showed an increase in testing for BRCA1/2 for breast and ovarian cancer, though not for the MMR mutation for Lynch syndrome.

A new study suggests that even tumor cells with a common genetic background can display functional heterogeneity.

Debu Tripathy, MD, Co-Leader, Women's Cancer Program, Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Southern California, describes intratumoral heterogeneity in patients with breast cancer.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML), the most common acute form of leukemia in adults, is potentially driven by at least one genetic mutation in nearly all cases.

Penny Daugherty, RN, MS, OCN, Southeastern Gynecologic Oncology, comments on the presence of a BRCA mutation in her patients.

William K. Oh, MD, Chief of the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology, the Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai Medical Center, discusses sequencing treatment in patients with metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer.

Fabrice Andre, MD, PhD, Research Director, Head of INSERM Unit U981, Institut National des Sciences et de la Recherche Médicale, Villejuif, France, discusses the need for new testing methods.