Utility of Trapelo to Increase Molecular Testing Rates

Lori Brisbin, vice president of precision medicine at Texas Oncology, discusses Trapelo, a new automated tool to help increase the number of patients who receive molecular testing as a precision medicine effort.

Trapelo is a decision support tool that assists in choosing the best test for patients based on their tumor type, explains Brisbin. The tool is updated every day with guidelines from the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, ASCO, and the FDA. People can also input information on clinical trials to help identify eligible patients, according to Brisbin.

The purpose of Trapelo is to increase the number of patients who receive molecular testing because, currently, only 30% of patients are receiving molecular testing, says Brisbin. This tool will advise which patients to test because each disease has different standards. For example, patients with breast cancer typically receive testing throughout the disease course, but patients with lung cancer are tested during stage III and metastatic stage IV disease. Community oncologists who work with several different tumor types struggle to keep track of information regarding testing for each disease, but Trapelo should offer a quick way to check the most up-to-date guidelines, concludes Brisbin.