GENOMIC TESTING

At the 2019 American Society of Clinical Oncology–Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium, Natalie Vokes, MD, MPhil, reviews the latest evidence linking tumor mutational burden to outcome in patients treated with immune checkpoint blockade as well as genomic correlates of response within the tumor immunity cycle.

An analysis of the genotyping of tumor tissue samples from patients with hepatocellular carcinoma identified frequent alterations and potentially actionable mutations in cases of HCC, and helped to confirm the clinical utility of next-generation sequencing testing for matching patients to targeted therapies and immunotherapies.

Genomic testing could increasingly be utilized to guide treatment decisions for Veteran patients with cancer. Two recent announcements confirm an emerging focus from Veterans Affairs on genetic testing that provides more informed and tailored cancer care for US Veterans.

Lung Cancer

Over 60 healthcare organizations are pressing the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services to revise its current interpretation of the National Coverage Determination, which they say wrongly excludes germline next-generation sequencing-based testing from Medicare coverage for patients with early-stage cancers.<br /> &nbsp;

General Cancer

Increasing clinical relevance of less common gene signatures and alterations is leading to a benefit from broad-panel next-generation sequencing testing for patients with metastatic non&ndash;small cell lung cancer, according to an expert at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

During the 2018 Annual Meeting of the Connective Tissue Oncology Society,&nbsp;Jason Roszik, PhD, MBA, of the MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the use of next-generation sequencing in intimal sarcoma.<br /> &nbsp;

Laura Michaelis, MD, associate professor of medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin, discusses thrombotic risk for patients with essential thrombocythemia and polycythemia vera.

Ignacio I. Wistuba, MD, Department of Translational Molecular Pathology, Division of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses how clinicians can best integrate molecular pathology into their treatment selection for patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

Giorgio Vittorio Scagliotti, MD, PhD, chief of the Medical Oncology Division at the S. Luigi Hospital, Orbassano (Torino), and head of the Department of Oncology at University of Torino, Italy, discusses the utilization of molecular profiling to inform treatment decisions for patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

According to findings&nbsp;released ahead of the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting, the use of next-generation sequencing (NGS) for patients with&nbsp;metastatic non&ndash;small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) can save&nbsp;Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) payers $1.4 million to $2.1 million. The findings additionally showed that NGS saved commercial insurance providers more than $250,000.<br /> &nbsp;