Robust assessment of tumor mutational burden in cytological specimens from lung cancer patients

Tumor mutational burden (TMB), defined as the total number of somatic mutations per tumor genome, is a known predictive biomarker for immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy outcome, following the observation that high TMB associates with positive treatment response[1 –6]. Accurate TMB estimation has proven to be challenging at both the pre-analytical and analytical stage, potentially leading to contradictory results across different studies regarding the predictive value of TMB[7]. Thus, understanding the complexity of TMB applications is of great clinical rel evance.

Source: Lung Cancer - September 4, 2020 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Ilaria Alborelli, Ivana Bratic Hench, Obinna Chijioke, Spasenija Savic Prince, Lukas Bubendorf, Laura P. Leuenberger, Markus Tolnay, Katharina Leonards, Luca Quagliata, Philip Jermann, Matthias S. Matter Source Type: research