Genomic Testing

The study assessed US veterans receiving care at the Veterans Health Administration for all cancer types, including prostate cancer.

Patients classified as GC high risk had a 5-year disease progression of 40%, compared with 20% among GC low-risk patients.

This marks the first worldwide approval for the niraparib/abiraterone dual-action tablet.

The investigators identified several genetic factors, including ARID1A mutation, that correlated with survival outcomes in patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma treated with immune checkpoint blockade.

"In our sample, nearly 10% of patients [with prostate cancer] had a gene variant that made them eligible for effective new therapies, with faster results than traditional referral for genetic testing and counseling,” said Maria I. Carlo, MD.

Michael S. Leapman, MD, MHS, highlights a study of patient experiences with tissue-based genomic testing during active surveillance for prostate cancer.

Researchers identified 9 novel susceptibility loci for prostate cancer, 7 of which were substantially more prevalent in patients of African ancestry.

“Vanderbilt researchers are participating in numerous projects related to PRS and disease risk; studies such as this highlight the importance of evaluating whether novel clinical tools actually enhance care,” said Kerry Schaffer, MD.

The application is supported by findings from the phase 3 MAGNITUDE study.

The GPS test uses a 17-gene signature to predict disease aggressiveness and help guide treatment decisions for patients with localized prostate cancer.

IsoPSA is included in the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Prostate Cancer guidelines for early detection of the disease.

“So many patients with prostate cancer qualify for genetic testing, but it's currently underutilized,” says Stacy Loeb, MD, MSc.

“We don’t want to subject patients to a therapeutic strategy that they are unlikely to benefit from,” says Atish D. Choudhury, MD, PhD.

“It really was a multidisciplinary effort to pull the data together [and] provide the clinical implications [of] the genetic markers,” says Veda N. Giri, MD.

Here is some of the top content on genomic testing from the past year.

Tanya Dorff, MD, explains how the next frontier in mCSPC will be the ability to select patients for treatment based more on molecular stratification and not only on disease volume or metachronous vs synchronous presentation.

The study found pathogenic or likely pathogenic variants in DNA damage repair genes and HOXB13 to be more frequently observed in Black men with a family history of cancer.

UriFind uses a urine sample to assess whether a patient has bladder cancer, avoiding an invasive cystoscopy.

“At this time, there are at least 2 classes of therapeutic agents which are used for patients with certain germline or somatic genetic mutations,” says Emmanuel S. Antonarakis, MD.

HIF-2α inhibitors, such as belzutifan (Welireg), are a promising new class of agents emerging in the renal cell carcinoma treatment paradigm, explains Eric Jonasch, MD.

“Many urologists in large group practices are doing genetic testing, especially for their high-risk patients,” says Emmanuel S. Antonarakis, MD.

“Our study offers molecular and cellular insights into this aggressive subtype of prostate cancer, which we hope will ultimately impact patient care,” said the study’s lead author, Hong Yuen Wong, PhD.

“Prostate cancer is…a BRCA-linked cancer, so we can increase the messaging surrounding prostate cancer on social media platforms, we can increase the amount of awareness on the genetic link that exists with prostate cancer, so that patients are also more empowered to bring this up with their providers,” says Sameer Thakker, MD.

“The other aspect of this study that really fascinated us was how patients are getting information about cancer genetic testing,” says Sameer Thakker, MD.

All patients with prostate cancer, except for those with low-risk or very low-risk localized disease, should be tested for germline mutations, and somatic testing should be done in all patients with metastatic disease as there are therapeutic implications, according to Emmanuel S. Antonarakis, MD.