Dr. Morris Discusses Biomarkers in Prostate Cancer

Michael J. Morris, MD, medical oncologist, clinical director, Genitourinary Medical Oncology Service, Division of Solid Tumor Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses biomarkers in prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer is a very diverse disease, says Morris, and even in the earliest stages of prostate cancer, patients need to be stratified by risk through biomarkers. From a medical oncology standpoint, biomarkers can help decide which treatment course a patient should take, and they can help indicate who is a responder and who is progressing.

There have been a number of ways in which to test patients with metastatic disease for progression, but liquid biopsies and imaging are the leading candidates, Morris says. In a poster presented at the 2018 ESMO Congress, circulating tumor-based biomarkers and PSMA-targeted imaging were compared in patients with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer. This was done in an effort to determine which approach might inform the other, as well as the performance characteristics of the techniques on their own, Morris explains.