Dr. Borghaei on the Search for Biomarkers in Lung Cancer

Hossein Borghaei, DO, MS, chief, Division of Thoracic Medical Oncology, director, Lung Cancer Risk Assessment, professor, Department of Hematology/Oncology, co-director, Immune Monitoring Facility, Lung Cancer and Mesothelioma TRDG member, and Gloria and Edmund M. Dunn Chair in Thoracic Oncology, Fox Chase Cancer Center, discusses the search for biomarkers in lung cancer.

Borghaei believes that 1 biomarker alone is not going to provide all the answers needed to inform optimal patient selection for treatment in lung cancer; rather, he believes a collection of biomarkers will be necessary to inform how to best care for patients with this disease. What those biomarkers are remains to be seen, he says.

Ongoing studies are examining various signatures, including interferon and inflammatory signatures, adds Borghaei. Other studies are examining investigative biomarkers and randomizing patients based on those biomarkers, an approach that might yield some answers, says Borghaei.

The search for biomarkers should continue because these markers could impact patient safety, efficacy, and cost containment, among other issues, says Borghaei. However, the quest to identify effective biomarkers is a difficult area of research, one that requires many resources, multiple biopsies from patients, and numerous blood samples collected at various time points. Despite these challenges, finding efficient biomarkers is a priority, concludes Borghaei.

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