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November 13, 2025, is the first annual Cancer Biomarker Awareness Day, hosted by the LUNGevity Foundation to raise awareness of biomarker testing and its benefits for patients. Biomarkers encompass genes, proteins, and other biological characteristics that offer additional insights into a patient’s cancer. They are typically detected through a blood test or biopsy and are used to make treatment decisions with better precision.
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has created a guide with 81 commonly used cancer biomarkers, but the list is incomplete. New biomarkers are constantly being identified, making it a challenge for providers, cancer centers, and research organizations to keep up.
Over the past decade, the Association of Cancer Care Centers (ACCC) has embarked on several projects aimed at making biomarker testing more accessible to cancer centers of all sizes. To meet the needs of this rapidly advancing field, ACCC’s projects have emphasized sustainable initiatives that can easily adapt and expand as new biomarkers are identified. Here are a few of the largest-scale projects with tools and takeaways to support cancer programs new to biomarker testing as well as those looking to step up their testing workflows.
The BiomarkerLIVE initiative was created in response to ACCC’s 2018 Trending Now in Cancer Care Survey. Each year, this report highlights the biggest successes and challenges faced by oncology professionals. In 2018, respondents were excited about the growing applications of biomarker testing but limited by issues with insurance coverage and payer reimbursement requirements.
This feedback sparked further investigation into the barriers hindering widespread use of biomarker testing and a multiyear project to produce resources tailored to the multidisciplinary care team. On-demand webinars, toolkits, podcasts, blogs, and more all focus on 4 key elements that were identified as the most impactful: provider education, patient education, infrastructure, and staffing and services.
The field of biomarker testing is ever changing. New tumor markers have been discovered in the years since BiomarkerLive was launched, but the operational strategies remain current. Establishing a sustainable process to facilitate testing as new diagnostic tools are identified is vital to ensure patient care keeps pace with progress. Browse all the resources created by this program on the BiomarkerLive webpage.
Most cancer centers already use an electronic health record (EHR) system to document patient charts, coordinate care, and more. These tools can also be used to streamline the workflow of ordering biomarker tests, collecting blood or tissue samples, coordinating with the lab, and reporting results back to the patient and care team. EHR integrations to support biomarker testing require collaboration among providers, administration, and information technology professionals, but once this technology is established, it can enable more precise treatment plans and better patient outcomes.
ACCC created an interactive roadmap that walks users through steps and considerations to lay the groundwork, prepare the care team, implement the initiative, and evaluate the progress of a cancer biomarker EHR integration. The corresponding infographic provides further information on the benefits of integrating EHRs with reference labs for biomarker testing. Together, these tools provide actionable steps for implementing this technological innovation and make precision medicine more accessible to cancer centers.
Each cancer type corresponds with its own unique set of biomarkers. This creates an opportunity to design testing implementation strategies tailored to a specific disease. In 2021, ACCC focused its attention on colorectal cancer, which comprises approximately 8% of new cancer cases in the US, according to the NCI. The diagnosis rate is slowly dropping, and some of the progress can be attributed to increased biomarker testing.
ACCC provided grant funding to 5 cancer centers with innovative plans to increase testing for patients with colorectal cancer. For example, Sanford Medical Center in Bismarck, North Dakota, partnered with genomic testing vendors to integrate test ordering and results into their institutional EHR system, leading to 100% testing for all patients with metastatic colorectal cancer and an almost 50% reduction in wait time from diagnosis to test order. Other benefits reported across participating cancer centers include improved clinical workflows, enhanced clinician awareness and education, and sustainable systems that will continue to support patient outcomes as more biomarkers become available. For more details about program implementation and key takeaways, read Integrating Biomarker Testing into Metastatic Colorectal Cancer.
The identification of new biomarkers is unlikely to slow down anytime soon. Each newly identified gene or protein brings new promises for precision medicine, along with new challenges for implementation. In response, ACCC is committed to continuously creating new resources to address barriers as they arise.
For example, the Volume 40, Number 5 edition of Oncology Issues features an article exploring strategies for communicating with patients about ESR1 mutations, a biomarker that develops in some patients with estrogen receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer following 1 or more lines of hormone therapy. This gene mutation, which causes treatment resistance, cannot be detected before treatment begins and requires repeat testing later in the patient’s cancer journey. Communicating this testing timeline is a challenge, but not insurmountable, especially when aided by an oncology workforce educated on biomarkers and committed to using them as a tool to improve patient outcomes.
