Physician Attitudes About Genomic Testing

An ever-growing array of genomic tools is available to clinicians to assess risk, determine prognosis, potentially define therapeutic targets, and thereby fulfill the promise of personalized therapy for cancer. But how much familiarity and comfort do physicians who care for cancer patients have with the use of these tools?

To find out, investigators surveyed 160 physicians at a major tertiary-care cancer center to assess their baseline level of genomic knowledge, current utilization of genomic testing, and likelihood of adopting this technology in patient care. The survey was conducted during the first phase of a longitudinal study (Profile), in which patients with cancer were offered OncoMap testing, which can identify 471 alterations in 41…