Integrating Biomarker Testing into Metastatic Colorectal Cancer Care

Piedmont Healthcare, Atlanta, GAPiedmont Healthcare aimed to improve biomarker testing in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.When a baseline sample of 100 patients revealed that most were not receiving biomarker testing in a systematic fashion, the QI team mapped out a new pathway for the pathology lab to perform reflex biomarker testing on biopsy samples that were suspected to be metastatic colorectal cancer.Partial biomarker testing includes KRAS, NRAS, BRAF, and microsatellite instability/mismatch repair (MSI/MMR).Complete testing involves the above in addition to newer markers such as HER2, and NTRK.This initiative resulted in heightened clinician awareness of actionable biomarkers and streamlined the testing process in a scalable manner.Future projects may explore broader use of multigene nextgeneration sequencing (NGS) panels to further enhance testing completeness.The project successfully increased partial biomarker testing from 60% to 90.2% and complete testing from 34.7% to 70.6%.