Dr. Robson on the Application of Precision Medicine in Breast Cancer

Mark E. Robson, MD, chief, Breast Medicine Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the application of precision medicine in breast cancer.

Ideally, every treatment should be grounded in precision medicine, says Robson. Currently, precision medicine is understood through a patient’s genomic profile. In breast cancer, that understanding has led to tailored treatment for patients with homologous recombination deficiencies and PI3K mutations, adds Robson.

For example, women and men who have germline BRCA1/2 mutations are known to derive benefit from PARP inhibitors. Additionally, patients who develop somatic PI3K mutations are likely to respond to the PI3K inhibitor alpelisib (Piqray). As such, it has become common practice to use genomic profiling to inform clinical decisions, particularly in the first-line metastatic setting, concludes Robson.