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Consensus on Molecular Testing in Lung Cancer

  • Lung Cancer (R Mudad, Section Editor)
  • Published:
Current Pulmonology Reports Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose of Review

Molecular testing for lung cancer has evolved dramatically over the last decade, driven primarily by the rapid development of targeted therapies. Initial testing was intended to make appropriate therapeutic choices with primary single gene testing and has evolved into larger sensitive and specific panels to evaluate multiple genes.

Recent Findings

The wide array of technologies and an increasing number of targeted therapies have resulted in increasingly complex management algorithms. In this article, we review the current guidelines, briefly discuss individual targets, and introduce some of the complexities associated with genomic testing.

Summary

We generally recommend next generation sequencing (NGS) panel testing when available and discuss other reasonable alternatives. Circulating tumor assays are commonly utilized, particularly when tissue is unavailable for genomic testing.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicine, Lahey Hospital and Medical Center, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA

    Parth Shah

  2. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, 450 Brookline Ave, Boston, MA, 02215, USA

    Jacob Sands

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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jacob Sands.

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Conflict of Interest

Jacobs Sands declares financial connection as consulting/advisory board at Foundation Medicine, Merck, Incyte, Celgene, Astra-Zeneca, and Trovagene, outside the submitted work. Parth Shah reports no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

Additional information

This article is part of the Topical Collection on Lung Cancer

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Shah, P., Sands, J. Consensus on Molecular Testing in Lung Cancer. Curr Pulmonol Rep 7, 49–55 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13665-018-0201-8

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