Personalized Medicine

UNLABELLED: Nonuniform dose distributions among disseminated tumor cells can be a significant limiting factor in targeted α therapy. This study examines how cocktails of radiolabeled antibodies can be formulated to overcome this limitation. METHODS: Cultured MDA-MB-231 human breast cancer cells were treated with different concentrations of a cocktail of 4 fluorochrome-conjugated monoclonal antibodies. The amount of each antibody bound to each cell was quantified using flow cytometry...

BACKGROUND: There is uncertainty about the benefits of using genome-wide sequencing to implement personalized preventive strategies at the population level, with some projections suggesting little benefit. We used data for all currently known breast cancer susceptibility variants to assess the benefits and harms of targeting preventive efforts to a population subgroup at highest genomic risk of breast cancer. METHODS: We used the allele frequencies and effect sizes of 86 known breast cancer variants to estimate the population distribution of breast cancer risks and evaluate the strategy of targeting preventive efforts to those at highest risk...

CONTEXT: Anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC) is the most lethal of all thyroid cancers and one of the most aggressive human carcinomas. In the search for effective treatment options, research toward targeted, personalized therapies is proving to be a path with great potential. As we gain a deeper understanding of the genetic (eg, BRAF(V600E), PIK3CA, TP53, hTERT mutations, etc) and epigenetic (eg, histone methylation, histone de-acetylation, microRNA regulatory circuits, etc) alterations driving ATC, we are able to find targets when developing novel therapies to improve the lives of patients...

"Personalized medicine" has become a generic term referring to techniques that evaluate either the host or the disease to enhance the likelihood of beneficial patient outcomes from treatment interventions. There is, however, much more to personalization of care than just identifying the biotherapeutic strategy with the highest likelihood of benefit. In its new meaning, "personalized medicine" could overshadow the individually tailored, whole-person care that is at the bedrock of what people need and want when they are ill...

Immunology-based therapy is rapidly developing into an effective treatment option for a surprising range of cancers. We have learned over the last decade that powerful immunologic effector cells may be blocked by inhibitory regulatory pathways controlled by specific molecules often called "immune checkpoints." These checkpoints serve to control or turn off the immune response when it is no longer needed to prevent tissue injury and autoimmunity. Cancer cells have learned or evolved to use these mechanisms to evade immune control and elimination...

Personalized medicine, in concert with targeted oncologic therapy, has become one of the most active, rapidly advancing, and clinically challenging pursuits in cancer treatment. A major concern for molecular geneticists and clinicians must be to focus upon prioritizing those issues that are most important for research and targeted management in these most prolific days of cancer medicine. In no area of medicine is this more apparent than in cancer medicine, where arrays of specific genetic alterations have been used to manage various types of malignancies...

Breast cancer is the first cause of cancer in women worldwide. Recent molecular analyses have shown that it is not a single disease but a mixture of several diseases with different biological behaviors, which should lead to treatment customization for each patient. Personalized medicine is based on tumor and/or patient molecular profiles. This new way to think oncology is currently applied at different stages of breast cancer management, including prognosis, prediction of treatment efficacy, and development of new therapies via new kinds of clinical trials...

Non-small-cell lung cancer is often diagnosed at the metastatic stage, with median survival of just 1 year. The identification of driver mutations in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) as the primary oncogenic event in a subset of lung adenocarcinomas led to a model of targeted treatment and genetic profiling of the disease. EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors confer remission in 60% of patients, but responses are short-lived. The pre-existing EGFR Thr790Met mutation could be a subclonal driver responsible for these transient responses...