Advancing Toward Personalized Medicine in Lung Cancer: A Focus on Gene Rearrangement Testing

Advances in genomics and molecular biomarker testing have led to tremendous improvements, ushering in a new era of personalized medicine especially in the oncology practice. Many of these biomarkers have been identified as receptor tyrosine kinases, shown to be involved in the signaling pathways associated with tumor growth and development. More interesting is that a subset of the genetic alterations observed in these biomarkers are gene rearrangements that result in constitutively activated tyrosine kinases, thus providing targets for therapies that could effectively inhibit the tyrosine kinase activity. Non-small cell lung cancer patients have benefited considerably, from these advances in targeted therapies, as there are already several therapeutics to which patients positive for specific gene rearrangements have shown remarkable response. Identifying such rearrangements is becoming part of the preliminary standard of care when diagnosing non-small cell lung cancer. Various diagnostic assays have been developed to provide such information. This webinar will review the available molecular methodologies for identifying gene rearrangements specifically focusing on ALK and ROS1 gene rearrangement testing in non-small cell lung cancer. Included in the review will be an overview of the technology, the current recommendations, common practices and challenges associated with these methodologies, to better understand the available options in order to choose the best course of action throughout the patient treatment cycle.

 

Learning Objectives