2025 Report to the Community - Flipbook - Page 23
ACS awards grant to Hollings
pulmonologist to improve lung
cancer biomarker testing at
community hospitals
Biomarker testing is an important part of modern lung cancer care, especially
for advanced or metastatic lung cancer, which includes more than half of new
diagnoses. Not all lung cancers are the same, so knowing whether a tumor has
certain genetic mutations can allow doctors to prescribe a targeted therapy
instead of chemotherapy.
But biomarker testing is uneven across the country.
“The evidence is that most patients don’t have all the testing they should
have before they start a treatment,” said Adam Fox, M.D., a pulmonologist
at Hollings who focusees on lung cancer.
The American Cancer Society awarded him a Clinician Scientist
Development Grant to devote time to a seemingly straightforward
question: How can community hospitals implement a process to
order biomarker testing immediately upon lung cancer diagnosis?
While MUSC Health has implemented “reflex testing” meaning the pathologist automatically orders biomarker
testing – the process isn’t so easy at community hospitals.
“No one’s looked at the barriers or facilitators or anything
for a community site, which is where most lung cancer gets
treated,” Fox said.
Community hospitals, he noted, have “drastically different
resources” than academic health systems.
“We’ve got a molecular pathologist; we run our tests inhouse,” he said.
Community sites, on the other hand, usually have to send
out their testing. Their oncologists usually treat the whole
spectrum of cancers instead of specializing in cancers in
one body system. Further, oncologists at both community
and academic sites feel the urgency from patients who
have just learned they have metastatic cancer and want to
begin treatment immediately.
The end goal is to ensure the same level of personalized
treatment no matter the setting.
Report to the Community 2025
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