Foundation One CDx
If you or a loved one is facing cancer, we want you to have access to the highest quality and most efficient care. At Irish Life Health we are passionate when it comes to looking after our members’ health and are relentlessly working with our partners, keeping abreast with the advances in cancer care.
There is a rapid pace of change in the management of cancer. There are newer diagnostic tools available that can better inform treatment decisions, which may enable better outcomes for these patients.
With this in mind, Irish Life Health are delighted to announce a partnership with Foundation Medicine, part of the renowned Roche Products (Ireland) Ltd. We are delighted to be the first health insurer in Ireland to reimburse Foundation Medicine Comprehensive Genomic Profiling tests.
What are the tests? Who are they for?
This new benefit will cover the cost of solid and liquid biopsy testing (FoundationOne CDx and FoundationOne Liquid CDx) provided by Roche Products (Ireland) Ltd for patients with primary lung cancer, cholangiocarcinoma, advanced breast cancer, advanced colorectal cancer and cancer of unknown primary origin.
What are the benefits of the test?
The Foundation Medicine tests assess the complex individual profile of a patient’s cancer. It provides information about clinically relevant biomarkers and genomic alterations to help match patients to approved targeted therapies, immunotherapies and clinical trials, giving Physicians and patients powerful insights for navigating cancer care. This may result in better response rates to treatment, prolonged time to treatment failure, improved survival and Improved Quality of Life.
Not only is it important to identify the driver mutations in a patient’s cancer, it is also critical to identify resistant mutations which will help rule out treatments that will not be of benefit to the patient. The Foundation Medicine tests also identify mutations associated with a particular tumour type that the patient does not have. This helps to rule out treatments that will have little / no clinical benefit.
Targeted treatments can reduce the cytotoxic side effects of some older treatments and can also lead to a reduction in Emergency department visits. It can also help to avoid any unnecessary biopsies.
How is the test done?
CDX is a liquid blood test so you will not need a surgical tissue biopsy, which in some cases can be difficult to obtain and a patient may not have enough tissue to allow a viable sample to be used.
“Thanks to Foundation Medicine Inc I am Here, Happy and Hopeful for the future. As a stage 4, triple negative, metastatic breast cancer patient, I know medical options and my time in this wonderful world are limited.
However, a close friend of mine saw a much longer future for me and suggested I undertake a FMI test. With the hope that results would offer a more complete picture of my cancer and help open up treatment options for me. Once the science behind the test was explained to me and in conversation with my Oncologist, an FMI tissue test was set up for me. This consisted of a sample of tissue from my tumour being sent to FMI in the US for testing.
Less than a month later my test results revealed there was an immunotherapy drug** that would work well with my tumour type, and a list of other immunotherapy drugs that may work well. These results gave me, my family & close friend great hope, great hope that there would be a Mary B in the future. Thank you FMI for ensuring this, and ensuring two little girls will continue to get a goodnight kiss from mum for many more months and hopefully years to come.”
*Patient is an employee of Roche Pharmaceuticals and received a gratuity.
** Immunotherapy drugs are subject to clinical criteria and terms and conditions of your policy being met, each request is assessed on a case by case basis.