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Time for a change and to adopt a novel molecular genomic approach in NETs

Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology volume 16, pages 269–270 (2019)Cite this article

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We read with interest the News and Views article by Rindi and Wiedenmann (Neuroendocrine neoplasia goes molecular — time for a change. Nat. Rev. Clin. Oncol. 16, 149–150 (2018))1, two notable and eminent authorities in the field of genomic medicine. Despite the concerns raised by these experts, the registry study discussed in their article unequivocally demonstrated the clinical utility of the NETest liquid biopsy assay in the ‘real-world’ setting2. NETest scores enabled accurate prediction (100%) of disease progression and had a 98% correlation with response to therapy, reducing the requirement to perform an imaging test in 40% of patients.

NETest is the first blood-based multianalyte gene transcript (mRNA-based) test for neuroendocrine tumours (NETs). The genomic validity of this assay was independently confirmed in an NIH-funded study evaluating the gene expression profiles of >10,000 tumours from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, with the results indicating that the NETest gene signature accurately captured the NET phenotype2. Our registry study confirms the clinical utility of this signature.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, USA

    Lisa Bodei

  2. Rocky Mountain Cancer Center, Denver, CO, USA

    Eric Liu

  3. Texas Oncology–Baylor Charles A Sammons Cancer Center, Dallas, TX, USA

    Scott Paulson

  4. Bennett Cancer Center, Stamford, CT, USA

    Anthony Gulati

  5. Freudman Healthcare Consulting, San Rafael, CA, USA

    Jon Freudman

  6. Emily Couric Cancer Center, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    William Grosh

  7. Department of Internal Medicine, Hartford Hospital, Hartford, CT, USA

    Sheldon Kafer

  8. Department of Gastroenterology, Richmond University Medical Center, Staten Island, NY, USA

    Prasanna C. Wickremesinghe

  9. Department of Surgery, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA

    Ronald R. Salem

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  1. Lisa Bodei
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  2. Eric Liu
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Correspondence to Lisa Bodei.

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Bodei, L., Liu, E., Paulson, S. et al. Time for a change and to adopt a novel molecular genomic approach in NETs. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 16, 269–270 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41571-019-0185-5

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