At one of the largest cancer conferences in the world, a debate was scheduled about “Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) – Is It Right for Every Patient?”
But in the end, the question at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting and conference June 1 wasn’t is it right, but how to use it?
Leonard B. Saltz, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and a participant in the session, said that in an era of precision oncology the debate has changed from whether or not patients should get NGS to how to use this new technology responsibly.
“The reality is, next-generation sequencing is here,” Dr. Saltz told the ASCO Daily News.
ASCO Past President Peter Yu, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Physician-in-Chief of the Hartford HealthCare Cancer Institute, said important questions remain about test variability, cost and protocols.
However, he added that medical organizations are embracing the ability to molecularly profile patients’ tumors in the metastatic setting, one of the most important advances for cancer patients in recent years. NGS can play an important role in determining the risk for genetic disease, and in patients with cancer, their treatment, such as whether a certain therapy will work or not.
To learn more about clinical trials offered by the Hartford HealthCare Cancer Institute and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, visit https://hartfordhealthcare.org/health-professionals/research/clinical-trials/current-trials/cancer