OVERVIEW

Community Practice Connections™ 2nd Annual Precision Medicine Through Plasma: Using Liquid Biopsies in Contemporary Oncology Care is organized by Physicians' Education Resource, LLC (PER) and will be held from Feb 28, 2019 - Feb 28, 2020.

Target Audience:
This educational activity is intended for medical oncologists, pathologists, and fellows who treat patients with cancer. Nurse practitioners, nurses, physician assistants, pharmacists, researchers, and other health care professionals interested in the treatment of cancer are invited to participate.

Accreditation:
• CME: 3.5
• CNE: 3.5

Activity Overview:
The emergence of novel testing strategies such as liquid biopsy has rapidly changed the treatment paradigm for patients with lung, breast, gastrointestinal, and other solid tumor malignancies. Tumor and plasma genotyping and determination of actionable genomic alterations have led to greatly improved patient outcomes; however, the potential role for liquid biopsy in screening, monitoring, and risk stratification is evolving and remains an active area of research.

In this online activity, focused on expert interviews, you will engage with medical experts in precision medicine, Benjamin P. Levy, MD; Geoffrey R. Oxnard, MD; and Joseph A. Sparano, MD; gain insight into the scientific foundations of liquid biopsy; compare the relative strengths and limitations of liquid versus tissue biopsy, including important differences in both sensitivity and specificity of the various testing methodologies; and consider the potential future opportunities for the use of liquid biopsies in cancer care.

The content and interviews are based on presentations delivered in December 2018 at the 2nd Annual Precision Medicine Through Plasma: Using Liquid Biopsies in Contemporary Oncology Care. For busy oncologists focused on the daily management of complex patients with solid tumors, this activity provides you with an opportunity to both enhance your understanding of liquid biopsy and apply the latest clinical data to the patient-care setting through case-based discussion.

Below are some clinical pearls and highlights from the activity:

• Liquid biopsy can detect circulating tumor cells and circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA). These biomarkers have prognostic and predictive value, may reveal actionable mutations, and in patients with localized breast cancer, have a potential role in surveillance to detect early recurrence.
• In patients with localized lung cancers, molecular residual disease detection through ctDNA analysis has been shown to identify disease recurrence significantly earlier compared with monitoring with CT imaging.
• For patients with metastatic colorectal cancer with acquired resistance to anti-EGFR therapy, cell-free DNA profiling holds promise to prospectively identify patients likely to achieve survival benefit from EGFR antibody rechallenge.

Learning Objectives:
Upon successful completion of this activity, you should be better prepared to:
• Compare the relative strengths and limitations of liquid biopsy against those of conventional tissue biopsy
• Identify the scientific foundations of liquid biopsy technology
• Contrast available and emerging testing technologies with respect to sensitivity, specificity, and clinical applications for patients with cancer
• Appraise clinical evidence pertaining to specific testing modalities that may help to individualize treatment protocols for patients with cancer

Additional details will be posted as soon as they are available.