Providence recently embarked on a study designed to help learn more about how health systems can leverage the use of multi-cancer detection tests. The Washington-based health system’s study seeks to identify some best practices that health systems should adopt as the start to embed these tests into clinical care.
In 2021, Providence became the first health system to use Grail’s Galleri test, which screens patients for more than 50 kinds of cancer. The test, which has yet to be cleared by the FDA, analyzes blood samples to detect signals indicating the presence of cancer. If cancer is found, the test’s result can show clinicians where the cancer is stemming from within a patient’s body with 88% accuracy, according to Grail’s website.
Through its new study, Providence seeks to understand the ways in which patients with a genetic predisposition to cancer access innovative screening tools like the Galleri test. The health system is also hoping to learn more about how access to these tools affects patients’ decision making about their care.
In short, Providence is seeking to “get a sense of how to manage this very novel technology,” explained Dr. Ora Gordon, regional medical director of the Providence Center for Clinical Genetics and Genomics and co-principal investigator of the study.
The study focuses on people with a high genetic risk of having cancer, such as patients with Lynch syndrome or a BRCA gene mutation.
“Patients with hereditary risk face the highest risk of cancer and have the greatest burden to screen and engage in preventive behaviors,” Dr. Gordon stated. “If we can learn from them how best to provide care to this very vulnerable group we can apply this knowledge to all patients at risk.”
Providence is working to understand what the downstream pathway looks like once these patients learn that Providence uses multi-cancer tests as part of its clinical care — looking at things like which patients chose to take the Gallelri test, whether their care was got denied by their health plan, and whether the test played a role in preventing cancer from progressing to an untreatable state, Dr. Gordon said.
The study will follow enrolled participants for three years, collecting data through surveys, interviews, and the analysis of EHR records.
“This is a technology that fills in a huge unmet need. There are a lot of cancers out there, and 70% of all cancer-related deaths occur outside of those that we routinely screen for, like colon, breast, cervical, lung and prostate,” she remarked. “But if we could have a meaningful blood test that could pick up an early-stage ovarian cancer or an early-stage pancreatic cancer, it would be tremendous in terms of meeting that unmet need.”
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