The goal of the workshop was to address the complexity and rapidly changing nature of genomic information which existing EHRs are not designed to manage. Omics refers to the technologies used to explore the relationships and actions of various molecules within cells. To address these issues, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) convened the Omics and Precision Oncology Workshop in October 2016. This deluge of information makes it hard for a practicing oncologist to keep up with new discoveries and treatment options, especially if the clinician isn’t a genomic specialist. Then there is the issue of standard language to describe genomic alterations, which “are often named differently by different laboratories and researchers.” However, clinicians who order these tests often receive a report that is 20 to 30 pages, with hundreds of literature references, and the reports can be quickly outdated.
The ability to characterize cancers into smaller and smaller subgroups has been spurred by next-generation gene sequencing. The promise of precision medicine is to deliver targeted therapies to patients with specific tumor molecular alterations and to spare patients without those alterations from the side effects and expense of therapies that are unlikely to work.īut the pace of scientific discovery in the field has been so rapid that the authors note “our ability to identify genomic aberrations has outstripped our ability to take advantage of such information for the benefit of the patient.”
Jeremy Warner, M.D., M.S.Ĭlinical oncologists, whether at large academic institutions or small community practices, are increasingly expected to deliver precision medicine with treatments tailored to the genomic changes that occur in a tumor as the cancer advances. The lead author is Jeremy Warner, M.D., M.S., assistant professor of Medicine and Biomedical Informatics and medical director of the Vanderbilt Cancer Registry. The recommendations were unveiled in a new report published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. A group of nationally recognized medical information and data management experts has recommended the development of new knowledge software applications that work alongside electronic health record systems (EHRs) to help practicing oncologists access and use the latest genomic information to assist in the treatment of cancer patients.
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