Next Generation Sequencing (NGS)
With population growth and aging, the healthcare system faces a rising global cancer epidemic with 14 million new cases and 8 million deaths annually. Treatment can be challenging sometimes when two patients with the same type of lung cancer respond differently. By knowing the exact underlying genetic cause of the cancer in each patient, a personalized targeted therapy can pave the way to an effective treatment regime in the individual.
In the era of precision medicine, a patient can benefit from a prolonged disease-free survival with a treatment that is tailored to his/her individual genetic changes. The availability of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) for lung cancer patients that target specific mutations has improved progression free survival from 15% to 35%.
However, access to targeted therapy is often hampered by limited tissue availability for multiple sequential testing and delayed results for patients who require immediate treatment. NGS offers a comprehensive molecular diagnostic solution that enables the detection of a wide range of target genes in a single test, thus significantly reducing the waiting time for results.
NGS Patient Access Programmes
In view of these challenges, Subang Jaya Medical Centre, partnered with pharmaceutical and industry leaders to introduce the NGS Patient Access Programmes. These programmes aim to provide support for molecular testing in patients with non-small cell lung cancer, using a 50-gene targeted NGS panel known as the NGS Express-Lung Panel. The patients can benefit from a rapid genetic testing of their tumour in just three to five days instead of the conventional two to three weeks, at a substantially reduced cost.
Under this initiative, the patients can gain access to a life-changing individualized, and targeted treatment for lung cancer. The discovery of specific genetic defects in lung cancer cells enables the precise targeting of cancer cells, while sparing the patient's healthy cells. The acquisition and deployment of this new technological platform in our facility substantially shortens the time from diagnosis to commencement of targeted treatment which is extremely critical in the management of lung cancer, an otherwise fatal disease.
