Dr. Mehnert on Promising Biomarkers for Immunotherapy

Janice Mehnert, MD, medical oncologist, director, Phase I and Developmental Therapeutics Program, Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, discussing promising biomarkers for patients to receive immunotherapy across tumor types.

Across the field, researchers have concluded that PD-L1 expression is important—though it is far from perfect, especially because the various assays available are not standardized, Mehnert explains. Additionally, it is unclear whether it matters more or less in one tumor type versus another.

Researchers should also be studying other factors, such as next-generation sequencing as a surrogate for whole-exome sequencing to identify extreme cases of high mutational load that could be predictive, she adds.