Clinical Implication of Molecular Tumor Board

Abstract

Due to rapid technical advances, steeply declining sequencing costs, and the ever-increasing number of targeted therapies, it is expected that extensive tumor DNA or RNA sequencing will be applied in standard of care. Clinicians will thus be confronted with increasingly complex genetic information and multiple test-platforms to choose from. General medical training, meanwhile, can hardly keep up with the pace of innovation. Consequently, there is a rapidly growing gap between clinical knowledge and genetic potential in cancer care. Multidisciplinary Molecular Tumor Boards (MTBs) have been suggested as a means to address this disparity, as a multidisciplinary approach to keep pace with the growing knowledge of complex molecular alterations in patients with advanced solid cancer. MTBs are designated to interpret these data and provide clinical recommendations. Not all patients with cancer have access to advice of an MTB. We aimed to determine the current status, opportunities, and challenges of the organization of MTBs in the Korea.