Cancer screening is considered a key cancer control strategy because patients who are diagnosed with earlier stages of disease often have better treatment options and improved health outcomes. However, effective screening tests are lacking for most cancers. The development of minimally invasive approaches to screen for multiple tumor types at once could address this unmet need, but the clinical utility of multicancer detection (MCD) testing has yet to be established. This workshop examined the state of the science for the clinical use of MCD testing and feature presentations and panel discussions on topics such as:
- Examples of current and emerging MCD tests.
- Challenges and opportunities to validate MCD tests and determine their clinical utility for detecting cancer and reducing cancer-specific mortality.
- Strategies for cancer care downstream of MCD testing, such as follow-up diagnostic testing and treatment decision-making.
- Limitations of MCD tests, including the burden on patients and health care systems from false-positive test results, overdiagnosis, and overtreatment.
- Research and policy gaps for assessing MCD tests and their impact on cancer care and outcomes and health equity.
Planning Committee
Beth Karlan, University of California, Los Angeles (Co-chair)
Lawrence Shulman, University of Pennsylvania (Co-chair)
Justin Bekelman, Daymark Health
Philip Castle, National Cancer Institute
Ruth Etzioni, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
Chanita Hughes-Halbert, University of Southern California
Elena Martinez, University of California, San Diego
Etta Pisano, American College of Radiology
Robert Winn, Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center,
Virginia Commonwealth University
Speakers
Tomasz Beer, Exact Sciences
Philip Castle, National Cancer Institute
Chyke Doubeni, The Ohio State University
Craig Eagle, Guardant Health
Ruth Etzioni, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
Sue Friedman, Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered
Ora Gordon, Saint John’s Cancer Institute and Providence Health
William Grady, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
Cheryl Ivey Green, First Baptist Church of South Richmond
Carmen Guerra, Penn Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
Jill Hagenkord, Optum Genomics
Richard Hoffman, University of Iowa
Jody Hoyos, Prevent Cancer Foundation
Rachel Issaka, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
Hormuzd Katki, National Cancer Institute
Stella Kang, New York University Langone Health
Nancy Keating, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Eric Klein, GRAIL
Alex Krist, Virginia Commonwealth University
Jane Lange, Cancer Early Detection Advanced Research Center (CEDAR),
Oregon Health and Science University
Ronald Myers, Thomas Jefferson University
Christos Patriotis, National Cancer Institute
Scott Ramsey, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
Hilary Robbins, International Agency for Research on Cancer
Wendy Rubinstein, National Cancer Institute
Deborah Schrag, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Ya-Chen Tina Shih, University of California, Los Angeles
Robert Smith, American Cancer Society