Dr. O'Shaughnessy on Adding Phosphoprotein Testing to Genomic Testing for Breast Cancer

Joyce A. O'Shaughnessy, MD, Texas Oncology-Baylor Charles A. Sammons Cancer Center, discusses adding phosphoprotein testing to genomic testing for patients with breast cancer.

O’Shaughnessy explains she has often used phosphoprotein analyses in order to determine driving mutations in refractory tumors. For example, she mentions a patient with refractory triple-negative breast cancer who, upon genomic analysis, had several mutational abnormalities. Therefore, a clear treatment plan could not be determined. However, by using a phosphoprotein assay, fibroglast growth factor receptor was found to be the single driving mutation.

This is helpful, O’Shaughnessy says, because several mutational abnormalities may act as passengers and/or are inactive in patients, and the driving mutation may not be determined solely with a genomic analysis.