Braunschweig Municipal Hospital has installed a groundbreaking process for molecular tumor analysis using next-generation sequencing (NGS). We spoke to the hospital’s medical director, Thomas Bartkiewicz, MD, and the head of the Department of Pathology, Ansgar Dellmann, MD, about the role that tumor analysis plays in oncology at the hospital and about the collaboration with Siemens Healthineers subsidiary NEO New Oncology, which executed the project.
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Photos: Peter Sierigk
How does molecular tumor analysis fit into the overall direction of Braunschweig Municipal Hospital?
Thomas Bartkiewicz: As a maximum-care hospital in our region, we aim to provide care at the level of a university hospital. In order to live up to this, we have made oncology one of our focus areas and are certified as a national cancer center by the German Cancer Society. We’re proud of that, but of course it also motivates us to remain at the cutting edge of diagnostics and therapy. Innovative molecular diagnostics plays a crucial role in this, because it allows us to offer truly personalized cancer therapies.
Ansgar Dellmann: We’ve been doing molecular diagnostics in pathology for quite a while now, but now the NGS-based technology has given us a wonderful tool for really providing the best therapies to patients here in the Braunschweig region. Nevertheless, pathologists are obviously still required to identify tumors under the microscope before we perform molecular characterization to be able to deliver the best treatment possible.
How has the use of NGS technology changed things for your submitters?
Dellmann: In some cases, we had to start by communicating the enormous advantages of receiving information about a large number of genetic changes. We’ve significantly expanded the spectrum of tests we offer for lung cancer, which our submitters are very pleased about. The test results are also included in our hospital tumor conferences, where we discuss the treatment options for our patients.