Committee Helps Physician's Find Best Options for Patients Through NGS

Jennifer Marie Suga, MD, a medical oncologist at Kaiser Permanente Vallejo Medical Center, discusses how the results from next-generation sequencing (NGS) tests are assessed to help physicians manage their patients in real-time.

Suga says that the genomic oncology committee evaluated each of those results for several things. They looked at whether there is an FDA-approved drug for that patient based on their NGS results. Another aspect they considered was if an FDA-approved drug for an alternative cancer had clinical evidence of activity in that patient’s cancer setting. The committee made decisions based on whether there was a relevant clinical trial within the patient’s network or in the patient’s local area. They also looked at whether the patient required additional genetic testing and counseling as determined by their genetics team.

A comprehensive review showed that approximately 40% of patients had an actionable mutation in NGS findings. Among those patients, certain tumor types such as lung cancer and breast cancer have about a 50% rate of actionable mutations. About 22% of those patients were potentially eligible for a clinical trial within the area, and about 11% were eligible for an FDA-approved drug or 1 that was promising in that indication, according to Suga.

<< View more resources and information regarding genomic testing