Open AccessAvenues to Precision Oncology
Author(s) -
Alexander Meisel
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
healthbook times. oncology hematology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2673-2106
pISSN - 2673-2092
DOI - 10.36000/hbt.oh.2020.03.013
Subject(s) - precision oncology , precision medicine , clinical trial , medicine , drug development , medical physics , clinical practice , intensive care medicine , oncology , bioinformatics , pathology , drug , pharmacology , biology , physical therapy
Until recently, the clinical management of cancer heavily relied on anatomical and histopathological criteria, with ad hoc guidelines directing the therapeutic choices in specific indications. In the last years, the development and therapeutic implementation of novel anticancer therapies significantly improved the clinical outcome of cancer patients. Nonetheless, such cutting-edge approaches revealed the limitation of the one-size-fits-all paradigm. The newly discovered molecular targets can be exploited either as bona fide targets for subsequent drug development, or as tools to precision medicine, in the form of prognostic and/or predictive biomarkers. This article provides an overview of some of the most recent advances in precision medicine in oncology, with a focus on novel tissue-agnostic anticancer therapies. The definition and implementation of biomarkers and companion diagnostics in clinical trials and clinical practice are also discussed, as well as the changing landscape in clinical trial design.