Manali Bhave, MD

Funded by Hooters of America, LLC

There have been significant advances in the treatment of patients living with metastatic breast cancer. Some of these advances are due to a fairly new type of technology looking at changes in the DNA of the tumor (somatic next-generation sequencing (NGS)) and/or in patient’s normal cells (germline NGS) that may impact a patient’s prognosis and/or treatment options, including the opportunity to enroll on clinical trials.

Very few studies have looked at patient understanding and knowledge on this type of advanced testing (next-generation sequencing), though of the studies available, there appears to be a low level of patient knowledge on next-generation sequencing and a gap in expectations as to how this form of testing can impact a patient’s clinical care.

The aim of our study is to increase the enrollment of patients with metastatic breast cancer into clinical trials that match patients to specific therapies based on their NGS through 1) increasing patient knowledge and understanding of NGS and 2) using the education tool to identify the change in the rate of NGS testing, as well as change of treatment recommendations based on these results.