Prostate Cancer Treatment: What Is Precision Oncology?
Prostate Cancer Treatment: What Is Precision Oncology? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
How is precision oncology used in prostate cancer? Dr. David Wise defines precision oncology and explains how it is used in conjunction with prostate cancer testing for patient care.
Dr. David Wise is Director of Genitourinary Medical Oncology at the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center at NYU Langone Health. Learn more about Dr. Wise.
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Transcript:
Dr. David Wise:
Absolutely. So, precision oncology is really a term that describes being able to tailor treatment to a patient’s cancer to the information that we have from that specific individual. So, it’s really tailored medicine. And it’s precise because, typically, that treatment is leveraging or exploiting a specific vulnerability or feature that we’re able to discern by a specialized testing of that patient’s cancer, okay?
And so, everything that I’ve been discussing, biomarker testing that lends itself directly to treatment is largely overlapping and very much an example of precision oncology. So, using genetic test results to guide treatment from that patient, that’s tailored to that patient. So, that is precision oncology.
Using that patient’s PSMA profile to determine the benefit of lutetium, that is, in my view, precision oncology. There are other examples of this in multiple different spheres and using multiple different treatment types, but that’s the general concept. I think the other example of precision oncology in general and specifically for prostate cancer are targeting NTRK mutations. So, NTRK I, II, and III, those are genes that can get mutated in any cancer type.
And just like the example of immunotherapy with microsatellite instability, the same holds true. So, any cancer with an NTRK mutation, there is an FDA approval to use NTRK inhibitory oral medications to treat that patient. Similarly to immunotherapy and microsatellite instability, we wish those mutations were more common because the treatment is very well-tolerated and is incredibly effective.
But still, just because it’s not common doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look for it because of how impactful these treatments can be.
