Webinar – Understanding Blood-Based Testing in Cancer Care

Cancer Nation’s Webinar Series presents a clear, practical conversation about advances in blood-based testing and how they’re shaping cancer care. These tools are helping care teams learn more about tumor changes over time and, in some cases, guide more personalized treatment decisions—all through a simple blood draw.

In this educational webinar, clinical expert Dr. Suzanne Fuqua, policy expert Jennifer Leib, and Dr. Kelly Shanahan, an advocate living with metastatic breast cancer, walk through how this testing works, what it can (and can’t) tell us, and how it’s being used across cancer types. We also talk about the real-world challenges—including gaps in insurance coverage and access—that can make it harder for people to benefit from these advances.

Following the speakers’ presentations, Cancer Nation CEO Shelley Fuld Nasso moderates a discussion that includes questions from the audience of patients, advocates, and professionals.

Watch the webinar below or here on YouTube.

Video Chapters and Resources

Webinar Chapters:

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:07 What can this testing do currently?
• 05:14 Clinical & Research Background
• 10:05 Testing Styles & Continuing Research
• 15:47 Why blood-based testing matters for patients.
• 25:00 Policy Introduction
• 27:08 How Medicare determines coverage
• 31:23 Coverage Examples
• 35:46 CancerDx Access Alliance
• 37:57 Q&A: AI Use in Blood-Based Testing
• 40:07 What are the biggest benefits?
• 44:02 Research Funding Challenges
• 47:38 How can we advocate for coverage?
• 50:51 How do patients receive the results?
• 54:05 Are private insurers covering this?
• 55:32 How can patients ask to get this testing?

Webinar Slide Decks:

• Suzanne Fuqua, PhD: Understanding Blood-Based Testing in (Breast) Cancer Care (PDF)
• Jennifer Leib: Medicare Coverage of Precision Oncology Diagnostics (PDF)

This webinar is presented by Cancer Nation, and supported by an unrestricted educational grant from Guardant Health.

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Suzanne A.W. Fuqua, PhD

Suzanne Fuqua is a Professor of Medicine and Molecular Biology at the Baylor University College of Medicine. The main goal of her research is to determine the role of specific somatic mutations in estrogen receptor alpha, called K303R and Y537N, in the clinical problem of hormone resistance. Dr. Fuqua was the first to discover alternatively spliced transcriptional isoforms and somatic mutations in breast tumors. She has determined that the K303R mutation alters many aspects of hormone action, including binding to co-regulatory proteins, enhanced stability, estrogen hypersensitivity, response to tamoxifen, and resistance to the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole. Her team discovered the Y537N mutation, a constitutionally active receptor in metastatic tumors. A major goal of her laboratory is to develop novel therapeutics to target these alterations in ER alpha to restore hormone sensitivity, as well as to identify other novel mechanisms of resistance.

Dr. Fuqua has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Houston. She received a PhD in Cancer Biology from the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Science. She is a Professor of Medicine and Molecular and Cellular Biology at Baylor College of Medicine.

Kelly Shanahan, MD

In 2008, Kelly Shanahan had everything going for her: a busy and successful ob-gyn practice; a precocious 9 year old daughter; and a well used passport from traveling all over the world with her family to attend conferences, with a liberal dose of vacation on the side. When she was diagnosed with stage IIB breast cancer, she considered it a mere bump in the road.

And for five years, breast cancer was an aside, something to put in the past medical history section of forms. Even when she developed sudden back pain, Kelly never thought it could be breast cancer rearing its ugly head – a pulled muscle, a herniated disc maybe, but not what it turned out to be: metastatic breast cancer in virtually every bone in her body, with a fractured vertebrae and an about to break left femur. Kelly was diagnosed in 2013, on her 53rd birthday.

Neuropathy from the chemo cost her her career, but she has found a new purpose in advocacy. Kelly is the president of the board of directors of METAvivor; a member of the Patient Centered Dosing Initiative; a Komen Advocate in Science; on the symptom intervention committee of the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology; on the emerging toxicities working group of MASCC; and is a grant reviewer and research advocate. Currently on her 6th line of therapy (and 2nd phase 1 clinical trial), she is passionate about getting patients to the table in the design, implementation, and follow up of clinical trials.

Kelly Shanahan is a mother, a wife, a daughter, a doctor, a woman LIVING with metastatic breast cancer.

Jennifer Leib, ScM, CGC

Jennifer Leib founded Innovation Policy Solutions, a government relations firm specializing in genomics and precision medicine policy. Some of her accomplishments include leading the advocacy effort in support of the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in the Association for Molecular Pathology vs. Myriad Genetics Inc. that invalidated gene patents, serving on the Executive Committee of the Coalition for Genetic Fairness which successfully advocated for passage of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, and assisting companies with navigating the evolving regulatory and reimbursement landscape for diagnostic testing during recent public health emergencies. Previously, Jennifer co-founded another consulting firm, HealthFutures, which was acquired by CRD Associates in 2009. Board certified in genetic counseling, she also worked at the National Institutes of Health, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and in the biotechnology industry.