Further Genomic Analysis May Expand the Pancreatic Cancer Field

In a conversation with CancerNetwork^® during Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month, Tanios S. Bekaii-Saab, MD, highlighted the importance of profiling pancreatic cancer tumors for genomic analysis among all eligible patients to help inform treatment decision-making in the field.

According to Bekaii-Saab, David F. and Margaret T. Grohne Professor of Novel Therapeutics for Cancer Research, Chair and Consultant in the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Mayo Clinic in Arizona, and Co-Leader of Advanced Clinical and Translational Science at Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, there are several new targeted agents that are advancing through clinical trials or being developed for use in the clinic. Consequently, it may be crucial to test for markers such as BRAF V600E mutations, NRG1 fusions, and other RAS mutations to better tailor treatment strategies for each individual patient. Additionally, Bekaii-Saab emphasized the use of testing to screen for inherited germline mutations that may be linked to a patient’s disease.

Transcript:

It’s very important to ensure that every single patient with pancreatic cancer—every tumor of every patient with pancreatic cancer—needs to be profiled for genomic analysis. Why? Because now we have all these targeted agents that are either making their way into clinical trials or hopefully making their ways into the clinic. [For example,] we’ve talked about BRAF V600E mutations. We’ve talked about KRAS G12C mutations.

We’re seeing so many targets that are now emerging in pancreatic cancer that, in some ways, it would be relative malpractice not to profile all these tumors. [We must] make sure that we’re going to find every single one of them: microsatellite instability–high [MSI-H], RAS mutations....BRAF V600E mutations, NRG1 fusions, you name it. This is expanding the field.

The message needs to be clear that for every single patient with pancreatic cancer, we need to have an assessment of inherited mutations. [This includes] germline mutations because [approximately] 5% to 10% of those patients will have some alterations that may link to the cancer. [This also includes] genomic analysis.