Bringing HER2 breast cancer testing in-house can help deliver faster diagnoses and more personalized patient care
October 8, 2024
From its beginning in 1993, the Randy W. Cooper Center for Breast Health Services at Piedmont Healthcare Augusta has aimed to provide a rapid-turnaround screening process for breast cancer patients with the goal of speeding up the imaging and biopsy processing time to help get results for patients sooner.
Timing is crucial when it comes to diagnosing breast cancer, especially as there are many different types that have different corresponding treatments. Piedmont Augusta leaders decided to bring HER2 Dual ISH testing in-house as a way to reduce the turnaround time from the one to two weeks it had taken to get results back from an outside laboratory.
In-house HER2 breast cancer testing outcomes
Quick Response
Benchmark Ultra Instruments allowed timely running of HER2 Dual ISH cases using single piece flow
Turnaround
60% improvement in turnaround time
Results
Shortened case results from 11 to 14 business days to three to four
Treatment Time
The multidisciplinary care team improved review times by up to seven business days, significantly reducing time to treatment.
HER2 status makes a difference in breast cancer
HER2 status can change many steps in treatment, from whether someone has surgery or chemotherapy, or a more targeted treatment. It is especially important in diagnosing invasive breast cancer and can impact the patient’s treatment journey.
Pathologists are using companion diagnostic tests to help oncologists decide what corresponding drugs will be the most effective treatment for an individual’s specific type of cancer. Roche’s VENTANA HER2 Dual ISH DNA Probe Cocktail assay has been used together with trastuzumab to diagnose and treat HER2 positive breast cancer. Trastuzumab works by locking onto HER2 on the cancer cells, stopping them from growing and then killing them.1
Helping clinicians plan patient-centric care
Piedmont was under increasing pressure from clinicians who wanted faster results on their patients’ HER2 gene amplification status. While the hospital’s anatomic pathology lab was able to report estrogen receptor and progesterone expression quickly, it had been sending its HER2 gene testing to an outside lab. Bringing the test in-house has improved the hospital’s turnaround time of HER2 gene expression status results down to a few days, allowing the multidisciplinary team to review, develop and start a treatment plan more quickly and help provide peace of mind to patients awaiting their results.
Having the HER2 testing information back quickly helps
important treatment decisions to be made faster.
Operational Benefits
"The most important benefit to our newly acquired in-house HER2 testing is timeliness. It allows us to get a piece of information back in one to two days that has historically taken us one to two weeks."
- Matthew Pugliese, M.D., breast surgical oncologist, Piedmont Augusta
Clinical Benefits
"[HER2 testing] may change your surgery decision, it may impact whether you are going to have chemotherapy or one of the monoclonals. So, it is a big piece of that puzzle that is cancer treatment."
- Melissa Manley, breast health manager, Piedmont Augusta
Reducing wait time reduces patient stress
The second time Tracy Capizzi was diagnosed with breast cancer, she felt the urgent need to have answers and clarity. Her first diagnosis in 2011 was ductal carcinoma in situ, stage zero breast cancer. She learned of her second diagnosis, triple positive invasive ductal carcinoma, a more aggressive breast cancer than her first, on the Monday after a Friday biopsy.
Patient Benefits
"The Piedmont team is amazing, to get those results two days after having the biopsy meant the world to me."
- Tracy Capizzi, Patient, Piedmont Augusta
Breast cancer is personal, and diagnostics should be, too
Breast cancer is not just one disease, but many diseases that fall under one common name, and the specific biology of every cancer is different for each patient.2
Roche is committed to improving outcomes in breast cancer treatments, fueled by collaborations with more than 85 pharmaceutical partners — and through its comprehensive panel of advanced companion diagnostic assays and companion diagnostic biomarkers.
Disclaimer: Individual lab results may vary, and testimonials are not claimed to represent typical results. All testimonials are real participants, and may not reflect the typical purchaser’s experience, and are not intended to represent or guarantee that anyone will achieve the same or similar results.
Sources
1Breastcancer.org. Last accessed October 10, 2024.
2Rivenbark AG, O'Connor SM, Coleman WB. Molecular and cellular heterogeneity in breast cancer: challenges for personalized medicine. Am J Pathol. 2013 Oct;183(4):1113-1124. doi: 10.1016/j.ajpath.2013.08.002. Epub 2013 Aug 27. PMID: 23993780; PMCID: PMC5691324.
3Ventana Product Document Library. Interpretation Guide for VENTANA HER2 Dual ISH DNA Probe Cocktail assay; staining for breast carcinoma.
4Ventana Product Document Library. Package Insert, VENTANA HER2 Dual ISH DNA Probe Cocktail.
More Information
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