Options for MRD Testing Affect Patient Treatment Plan in Lung Cancer

EP: 1.Timing of MRD Testing in Lung Cancer Affects Patient Outcomes

EP: 2.Liquid Biopsy Techniques Test Lung Cancer MRD Level

Now Viewing

EP: 3.Options for MRD Testing Affect Patient Treatment Plan in Lung Cancer

Luis E. Raez, MD, medical director and chief scientific officer at Memorial Cancer Institute in Pembroke Pines, Florida, discusses when minimal residual disease (MRD) testing can be performed as an option for patients with lung cancer.

Raez highlights approaches to MRD testing post-surgery for patients with cancer. The first is to confirm remission and potentially reduce unnecessary adjuvant therapy. The second involves regular follow-up with radiation and CAT scans to monitor for recurrence, as the timing of recurrence is unpredictable. The third approach is using Signatera for recurrence detection using circulating tumor DNA, which received FDA breakthrough device designations for monitoring response. Signatera has been validated though multiple journals, such as Nature, across multiple tumor types. This technology could help predict therapy failure and serve as a marker, according to Raez.

TRANSCRIPTION:

0:10 | We have these 3 options to do MRD testing now. The first one is after surgery, to be sure that the patients are in remission or not. In that way, we are still trying to validate the MRD, meaning that hopefully, in the near future, we will only be giving adjuvant therapy after surgery to people that really need therapy. Today, we don't know; today we have to give therapy to everybody. That is why I think there is a big opportunity.

0:40 | The other opportunity...is when we follow these patients after surgery, the only way that we can follow them is with radiation, with CAT scans every 3 or 4 months—sometimes every 6 months—because we don't know what time they are going to recur. That's why we are also validating now the use of Signatera for recurrence. Finally, Signatera already has an FDA approval for immunotherapy follow-up because it was validated in a publication in Nature with around 100 patients in 4 or 5 different tumors that they can keep track of the patients [who] are under immunotherapy, and they can predict failure of therapy. So that was very interesting, because we can use Signatera as a marker also for these situations.