SGO 2023 Meeting: Reducing Health Disparities in Cancer Care

Attending scientific and clinical conferences is a great way to stay current on the latest discoveries and assures that doctors on the front lines know how Myriad’s genetic testing services help them treat their patients. That’s why we’re so excited about this year’s SGO Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer, a conference hosted by the Society of Gynecologic Oncology.

SGO 2023 will bring thousands of gynecologic cancer care experts to Tampa, Florida, this month. Attendees include surgeons, oncologists, pathologists, OB/GYNs, nurses, and pharmacists, among many other experts involved in cancer care.

The theme of this year’s meeting, which often focuses on reducing disparities and achieving health equity, is Patients, Purpose, Progress. That really resonates with our team. We have spent years working to help ensure that genetic testing benefits all people and to develop resources that allow healthcare professionals to support all patients.

For example, last year Myriad Genetics launched our Precise™ Oncology Solutions, a comprehensive suite offering germline testing, tumor profiling, and companion diagnostic options, including evaluation for homologous recombination deficiency (HRD). The suite offers a streamlined testing experience designed to help oncologists determine effective and personalized treatment plans for individual patients.

One of its components is the Precise Treatment Registry, which is designed to advance patient care by combining structured, de-identified clinical data with information from somatic, germline, and/or genomic instability genetic testing for thousands of patients. The goal is to improve outcomes for current patients by building on the data we have about previous patients — completely anonymized for privacy — to help spot patterns among patients with similar genetic and genomic results. This is a great way to build health equity by improving care for all patients. To show how it works, we’ll be presenting a poster at SGO illustrating real-world application of the registry.

The registry is one example of how Myriad Genetics is committed to sharing data to support innovation in the medical management of cancer. We plan to regularly update the Precise Treatment Registry with de-identified results ordered through Precise Oncology Solutions. We have also begun sharing anonymized cancer genetic data through ClinVar, a community resource that makes it easier for laboratory professionals to standardize the way they interpret genetic variants.

If you’ll be attending the SGO meeting, we hope you stop by booth #717 to visit the Myriad Genetics team. We’ll be sharing case studies to help healthcare professionals understand when and how to use genetic and genomic testing for gynecologic cancer care, and we’ll have plenty of information available about our Precise Oncology Solutions offering for comprehensive cancer management. We’ll also be sponsoring attendee networking events and a patient education session. We hope to see you there!