Precision Oncology at the Community Level with Lee Schwartzberg

When Lee Schwartzberg did his training as an oncologist some thirty years ago at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York, he had a dream. And after training, he set off to make that dream a reality: to bring the resources, expertise, and research that one enjoys at a major research hospital cancer center to the community level.

This landed him at the West Cancer Center in Tennessee where he was made Medical Director and also Chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the University of Tennessee's Health Science Center. And two years ago, after serving on various boards and founding a couple journals, he was finally appointed Chief Medical Officer of a national parntership of community oncologists that includes practices across the country from the East Coast to the West called OneOncology. He is now living out his dream.

Today he talks to us about how well precision oncology has made it to the community clinics. Lee says we are moving beyond the debate over molecular and genomic profiling. It's not a matter of whether, but when and which tests to include in the panels. He says, in general these days, physicians--and patients-- would like to see more information, as soon as possible after diagnosis.

"Our current recommendation at OneOncology is to order profiling (comprehensive genomic profiling) at diagnoses of advanced disease across cancer types," he says.

Is Lee in favor of population screening for the three major mutations, BRCA, Lynch, and FH? And what does he think of the trend of consumer-initiated testing?

It's a great chance to hear from one whose lifelong mission has been to take precision oncology out to the communities of America.