Overcoming Challenges in Adopting Epigenetic Liquid Biopsy for Prostate Cancer

Jacob E. Berchuck, MD, assistant professor, Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, discusses what challenges do he foresees in adopting this type a novel epigenetic liquid biopsy platform for determining tumor PSMA expression in patients with prostate cancer could bypass the need for PSMA PET scans in community oncology settings, and how could they be overcome.

He then delves into how this platform might help shape the future of precision medicine in prostate cancer beyond PSMA.

Transcription:

0:10 | One area I am excited about is the new wave of therapies like antibody-drug conjugates, radioligand therapies, bispecific antibodies, all of which target tumor-enriched cell surface proteins. I am optimistic that we will see several FDA approvals for drugs in prostate cancer and across solid tumors over the coming years. As those drugs are approved, we are left with a huge challenge of which drug to give which patient at which time.

0:38 | When I think about adoption of these blood-based technologies into practice, both in academic settings and in the community, this could help overcome that challenge, to deliver precision to by being able to noninvasively assay which patients express tumors, express which targets, to be able to deliver the treatments that we that we that are going to be more likely to be effective to improve outcomes for our patients.

1:02 | One aspect of this liquid biopsy approach is the ability to get genome wide data from a simple blood draw. What I mean by that is that with molecular imaging tests like PSMA PET scans, that is limited to looking at 1 tumor drug target. With liquid biopsy platforms, where we are profiling epigenomic features across the entire genome, we can potentially get readouts on all, or most or some tumor drug targets to not just look at PSMA response, but with a simple blood draw, be able to predict response to or tumor expression of PSMA.

1:44 | There are several other drug targets in prostate cancer that are under development….With a simple, single blood draw, being able to assay for an individual patient on a given day their expression of several drug targets could be an incredibly powerful opportunity to deliver precision medicine, not just for PSMA, but for all the drug targets that are under development for prostate cancer.