Tanja Obradovic: ASCO just published guidelines for germline genetic testing panels

Tanja Obradovic shared on LinkedIn:

“Great service to public and oncology community as ASCO just published few days ago guidelines for germline genetic testing panels. Link.
It was a monumental task as expert panel reviewed 52 guidelines and consensus statements from a range of professional organizations that covered information on genetic testing for evaluating hereditary risk of solid tumors in order to develop recommendations.
The germline panel should include at least the genes that the panel strongly recommends patients be tested for based on their personal and family history of cancer. Genes that are related to specific syndromes are incorporated into the list for relevant cancer types. For example, the ASCO team concluded that colorectal cancer (CRC) patients should be tested to see if they have cancer-associated germline variants in APC, EPCAM, MLH1, MSH2, MSH6, MUTYH, NTHL1, PMS2, POLD1, POLE, BMPR1A, SMAD4, STK11, and TP53. The expert panel similarly created a ‘strongly recommended’ list of genes to test in patients with breast, endometrial, gastric, gastrointestinal stromal, medullary thyroid, non-small cell lung (NSCLC), adrenocortical, melanoma, ovarian, pancreatic, phaeochromocytomas, paragangliomas, prostate, renal cell, and sarcoma tumors.
While somatic tumor mutations historically received lots of attention with many approved therapies targeting them the clinical significance of germline mutations is increasingly emerging with accompanying therapeutics. This guidance is certain to strengthen that trend.”

Source: Tanja Obradovic/LinkedIn

Tanja Obradovic is the Vice President of Oncology Scientific Affairs at ICON PLCh. She has over 20 years of clinical research experience and has led major pharmaceutical companies for 13 years. Her research focuses on small molecules, antibodies, cell and gene therapy, and major immunotherapy of PD1 inhibitors.