Broad genomic sequencing before treatment linked to 2 more months of survival in advanced lung cancer
A JNCCN analysis of over 35,000 US patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer found longer overall survival after broad panel testing than after one- or two-gene tests.
A study in the November 2026 issue of JNCCN – Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network found that patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) lived longer when they received broad genomic sequencing (BGS) before starting treatment, according to ma-clinique.fr ma-clinique.fr
ma-clinique.frma-clinique.frOpen source ↗. BGS tests a panel of dozens or hundreds of genes at once. The comparison group received limited biomarker tests covering only one or two genes.
Data and results
The authors analyzed real-world data from the Flatiron Health Research database. It covered more than 35,000 patients treated in community and academic oncology practices in the United States between 2016 and 2022. BGS before first-line treatment was associated with an average increase of two months in overall survival and a modest improvement in progression-free survival.
The authors link this probably to the wider range of tumor biomarkers that BGS can identify and that can guide targeted treatment. According to the study, 19% of patients in the BGS group received targeted therapy, compared with 16% in the limited-testing group.
Guidelines and expert comments
The NCCN clinical practice guidelines in oncology for NSCLC recommend BGS in the advanced or metastatic setting. Common biomarkers such as EGFR, ALK, ROS1, KRAS G12C, MET, RET and BRAF can help physicians direct patients to targeted therapies that may work better and be easier to tolerate ma-clinique.fr
ma-clinique.frma-clinique.frOpen source ↗.
Co-senior author Ravi B. Parikh of Emory University School of Medicine and Winship Cancer Institute said that the results and earlier work suggest large-scale genomic testing should be the default for patients with advanced lung cancer, ideally before first-line therapy. The lead author is Patricia Mae G. Santos of the same institutions.
Heather Hampel of City of Hope, who was not involved in the research, noted that this kind of effect is hard to prove without a large number of patients from several health systems over long periods. In her view, the study uses electronic health data to show that broad sequencing was associated with improved survival and with higher use of biomarker-directed targeted therapy compared with limited testing.
