Study on the Role of Rebiopsy in Relapsed Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer for Directing Oncology Treatments

Background: Currently few rebiopsies are performed in relapses of advanced non small cell lung cancer. They not customary in clinical practice.of lung cancer. However, it is not possible to properly target treatments in cases of relapse without knowing the nature of new lesions.

Objectives: Clarify current status and explore needs of rebiopsy.

Design: This paper comprehensively summarizes the available literature about rebiopsy and broadly discusses the importance of rebiopsy in advanced non small cell lung cancer.

Results: Altogether 560 abstracts were used as material for further analysis. Of which 19 articles were about clinical rebiopsy in lung cancer and were reviewed in detailed manner.

Conclusions: This review shows that rebiopsy is feasible in non small cell lung cancer, and success rates can be high if accompanied by adequate evaluation before biopsy. Its use may resolve the difficulties in sampling bias and detecting changes in cancer characteristics. In cases where treatment was selected based on tissue characteristics that then change, the treatment selection process must be repeated while considering new characteristics of the tumor. However, before performing rebiopsy adequate evaluation of risks for complications should be performed including anatomic and technical aspects of accessing tumor. Rebiopsy may be used to predict therapeutic resistance and consequently redirect targeted therapies. Such knowledge may resolve the difficulties in sampling bias, and also in selecting pre-existing clones or formulating drug-resistant ones. Rebiopsy should be performed more often in non small cell lung cancer. Rebiopsy is done after the initial biopsy that provided the diagnosis.