Blood shed.

Top Line: It may be the simplest way to predict therapeutic response in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
The Study: Not only is Guardant offering a biopsy-free way to decipher targetable mutations, a new blood test NC-GP150 (with a gene panel size of 150) is promising to quantify overall tumor mutational burden (TMB) all via circulating tumor DNA. In this multi-phase validation study, TMB per NC-GP150 performed on blood samples from 48 patients with NSCLC demonstrated ā€œsufficientā€ Spearman correlation (0.62) with TMB per the much more invasive and expensive whole genome sequencing performed on matched tissue samples. On exploration of cut-offs, a value of ≄6 mutations per megabase maximized sensitivity and specificity when compared to the whole genome sequencing standard. More importantly, in a separate cohort of 50 patients receiving PD-1 axis inhibition for NSCLC, those with ā€œhighā€ serum TMB (aka ≄6, n=28) achieved significantly higher progression-free survival (HR = 0.34) than those with ā€œlowā€ serum TMB (aka <6, n=22).
Bottom Line: Recognizing the not inconsequential risks of tissue attainment in NSCLC, a liquid biopsy with something like NC-GP150 may soon be enough to buy your patient access to effective PD-1 axis inhibition. | Wang, JAMA Oncol 2019

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