The use of molecular diagnostics in practice has been referred to as personalized medicine. Research that identifies unique gene and protein patterns associated with different cancer types will lead to the definition of new classifications and subtypes based on their molecular signatures.
Though this has the potential to improve cancer research, diagnosis, and treatment, the development of new therapies will require customized approaches to many cancer types and subtypes.
Using Expression Patterns to Choose Treatments |
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Image courtesy of The National Cancer Institute |
With the advent of microarrays, research has entered an entirely new level of sophistication. This technology allows researchers to study patient populations, collecting expression patterns of tumors that can then be documented, validated, and finally translated for general use by individual doctors and patients.
In the future, your doctors may also be able to predict your response to chemotherapy or radiation, based on your “molecular signature/expression signature”. This could eliminate much of the clinical “guesswork,” when deciding among multiple therapies that have been approved for a specific cancer type.
