ASCO 2021 | Blood and tissue TMB in predicting response to immunotherapy

Emma Sturgill, PhD, Sarah Cannon Cancer Institute, Nashville, TN, discusses using plasma and tissue tumor mutational burden (TMB) as a biomarker for predicting immunotherapy response. Analysis of plasma and tissue TMB values from patients revealed that blood TMB values were on average higher than tissue TMB values, which has implications in terms of predicting immunotherapy response. Heterogeneity in the plasma-based next-generation sequencing (NGS) vendors seem to contribute to the discrepancies in plasma and tissue TMB values. Dr Sturgill also suggests having different TNB-high thresholds for NGS vendors to better predict immunotherapy response. This interview took place at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2021 Virtual Meeting.