Dr Kristen Ciombor on Precision Medicine Approaches in Colorectal Cancer

There is a need for precision medicine approaches in colorectal cancer, said Kristen K. Ciombor, MD, MSCI, associate professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University, speaking at an Institute for Value Based Medicine® meeting.

Transcript

How do rising rates of colorectal cancer among younger patients point to the need for precision medicine approaches in this type of cancer?

We’ve been seeing recently that colorectal cancer is increasing in the young, with the highest increased incidence in patients under 50.

Now we have so many other options other than just standard chemotherapy. We do know that next generation sequencing early on in the diagnosis can be essential in demonstrating improved outcomes when we can target these treatments specifically to the patient's tumor.

There are pretty high rates of microsatellite instability, BRAF-2, or KRAS mutations and other things that are increasingly actionable. And so, we really want to be able to offer our best therapies especially for patients who are younger with this disease.