Dr. Yorio on Searching for Biomarkers in Metastatic Lung Cancer

Jeff Yorio, MD, medical oncologist, Texas Oncology, discusses the search for biomarkers and using next-generation sequencing (NGS) in metastatic lung cancer.

For patients diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer, it is now standard of care to perform NGS with tissue, explains Yorio. Biomarkers in lung cancer have expanded beyond EGFR to include ROS1, ALK, HER2, MET exon 14 skipping, and more with research continuing to search for other subgroups of patients with distinct biomarkers.

NGS assists in creating personalized treatment plans for patients, especially as new therapies are developed to treat patients with certain biomarkers, says Yorio. Even though all the patients are diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer, they may require different paths of treatment depending on any biomarkers that are present. Additionally, NGS panels are more effective than single mutational tests because it searches for multiple biomarkers, allowing for less tissue to be used, concludes Yorio.