Inclusion criteria, exclusion criteria and study summary
The primary aim of TARGET National is to establish a national framework to offer molecular profiling of circulating tumor DNA and/or tumour tissue (optional) to patients with advanced solid cancers referred to any of the Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres (ECMCs) across the UK, in order to help decision making for allocation to molecularly targeted experimental cancer treatments. Patients will be allocated treatment using a national Molecular Tumour Board to find the most suited therapies based on their molecular profiling results. The protocol has been written flexibly to allow additional samples to be collected (up to 60ml blood & up to 3 fresh biopsies) for further translational research. The TARGET steering board will oversee proposals for the collection and use of these samples to ensure all work remains within scope of the protocol and ethics approval. This study aims to recruit up to 6,000 patients with advanced solid tumours across 5 years and proposes to collect blood samples, archival tumour tissue and fresh tissue (optional). The data may also be used for future development of predictive cancer biological markers, the design of clinical trials involving new or existing drugs, discovery of new genetic targets and exploring how resistance to specific anticancer agents arises in patients to help improve future cancer treatment management.