Dr. Anne Chiang on Molecular Testing in Lung Cancer Treatment Planning

Anne Chiang, MD, PhD, professor and thoracic oncologist at Yale Cancer Center, discusses molecular testing in lung cancer and how it affects treatment decisions.

There are currently 3 approved immunotherapy agents approved for lung cancer: pembrolizumab (Keytruda), nivolumab (Opdivo), and atezolizumab (Tecentriq). If molecular testing shows a high level of PD-L1, patients are typically started on pembrolizumab, says Chiang.

However, not all patients across the country are being tested. Those who are not tested typically start treatment with nivolumab, when they could be seeing more benefit with pembrolizumab.

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