Credit: Robert Hood/Fred Hutch News Service
“You need good science to establish that a biomarker test is reliable, that the test is associated with the disease and an outcome of interest and, finally, that the treatment actually improves patient outcomes compared to standard treatment or usual care. Those three things – analytic validity, clinical validity and clinical utility – are what are needed before these tests should be permanently part of our care of patients on a routine basis,” says Gary Lyman, an internationally recognized oncologist and health economist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and a member of a committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM).