How Precision Oncology is Helping Oncologists Treat Advanced Cancer

For oncologists treating patients with advanced cancer, precision oncology is increasingly helping to improve clinical outcomes for patients across cancer types, including lung, breast, colorectal, and prostate. By taking a biomarker-informed approach, precision medicines, or targeted therapies, are shown to improve progression-free survival with fewer side effects than traditional one-size-fits-all chemotherapy or immunotherapy.^1-7 Unfortunately, testing to inform these precision medicines has been hindered by the limitations of traditional tissue biopsy. Blood tests overcome these challenges to provide complete genomic testing from a routine blood draw. And now with FDA approval, blood tests are increasingly being adopted.

Advances are also enabling the tailoring of treatment further by looking at circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) levels to assess whether a patient with advanced cancer is responding to treatment or not. This information helps oncologists to consider whether to continue, stop, or explore other treatment options, and provides them a more complete genomic picture across the treatment journey, from treatment selection to treatment response monitoring.