Keith T. Flaherty, MD, on NCI-MATCH Supporting NGS to Triage Patients to Investigational Therapy

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New research from NCI-MATCH support the feasibility and efficiency of using next-generation sequencing (NGS) to triage patients to investigational therapy, given that a sufficiently large pool of agents is provided.

Updated findings from the National Cancer Institute Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice (NCI-MATCH) support the feasibility and efficiency of using next-generation sequencing (NGS) to triage patients to investigational therapy, given that a sufficiently large pool of agents provided.1

The research, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, includes the largest data set ever compiled on patients with tumors that have progressed on 1 or more standard treatments, or with rare cancers for which there is no standard treatment.

“The 6000-patient analysis from NCI-MATCH describes the genetic complexity that is characteristic of relapsed, refractory cancers,” Peter J. O’Dwyer, MD, a medical oncologist at the University of Pennsylvania and group co-chair of the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group, said in a press release.2 “This publication represents an important milestone in the oncology field’s efforts to translate a genetic understanding of cancer into improved treatments.”

In an interview with CancerNetwork®, lead author Keith T. Flaherty, MD, a medical oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center in Boston, discussed the study findings and what NCI-MATCH will be evaluating moving forward.

This segment comes from the CancerNetwork® portion of the MJH Life Sciences Medical World News, airing daily on all MJH Life Sciences channels.

References:

1. Flaherty KT, Gray RJ, Chen AP, et al. Molecular Landscape and Actionable Alterations in a Genomically Guided Cancer Clinical Trial: National Cancer Institute Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice (NCI-MATCH). Journal of the National Cancer Institute. doi: 10.1200/JCO.19.03010

2. Genomic study of 6000 NCI-MATCH cancer patients leads to new clinical trial benchmarks [news release]. Philadelphia. Published October 13, 2020. Accessed October 14, 2020. https://ecog-acrin.org/news-and-info/press-releases/genomic-study-of-6000-nci-match-cancer-patients-leads-to-new-clinical-trial-benchmarks

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