October 22nd, 2022, Miami, FL—Lucence, the precision oncology company bringing clarity to cancer care, is sharing promising interim results from the prospective multicenter validation study of its LiquidHALLMARK ctDNA liquid biopsy assay for the detection of guideline-recommended biomarkers in metastatic lung cancer. Results from the study— LIQUIK, or Liquid Biopsy for Detection of Actionable Genomic Biomarkers in Patients with Advanced Non-small Cell Lung Cancer—were shared as part of a poster presentation at the 4th Annual Congress of the International Society of Liquid Biopsy in Miami, Florida.
The trial is examining LiquidHALLMARK’s ability to detect NCCN Guideline-recommended biomarkers as compared to conventional tissue-based profiling in patients with newly diagnosed advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). As of a study readout in June, concordance of LiquidHALLMARK with tissue-based profiling across nine identified clinically relevant genes— EGFR, ALK, RET, ROS1, NTRK fusions, MET, BRAF, ERBB2 and KRAS—ranged from 94.5% to 100%.
“For non-small cell lung cancer, liquid biopsy is already a guideline-recommended option for testing in cases where a tissue biopsy is not feasible. The excellent concordance with tissue-based profiling in these interim results are heartening, and we look forward to sharing full study results next year,” said Min-Han Tan, MBBS, PhD, Founding CEO and Medical Director of Lucence.
Additionally, LiquidHALLMARK was compared to an FDA-approved liquid biopsy test and detected 24 patients out of 33 with tissue-confirmed guideline-recommended biomarkers, versus 21 in the FDA-approved liquid biopsy test
“Up to 40% of non-small cell lung cancer cases have insufficient tissue yield to perform biomarker testing, making liquid biopsy a valuable clinical tool. Our interim analysis of LIQUIK revealed strong performance for LiquidHALLMARK in identifying guideline-recommended biomarkers compared to an FDA-approved liquid biopsy test currently on the market today,” said Richa Dawar, MD, Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of Miami Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and study investigator.
LIQUIK is enrolling treatment-naive newly diagnosed metastatic non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer patients from April 2021. Interim findings were based on 60 patients enrolled as of the June readout.