[Optimising therapy in patients with haematological malignancies]

Haematological malignancies, although relatively infrequent diseases, have benefited from major advances both in terms of diagnosis, identification of prognostic factors and therapeutic breakthroughs. The combination of morphological, cytogenetic, immunological and molecular approaches has greatly contributed to the identification of homogeneous entities, as well as prognostic subgroups of patients. Targeted therapies, such as monoclonal antibodies and kinase inhibitors, have demonstrated their efficacy in this group of diseases and since then has been generalized to patients with solid tumours. Current efforts include the evaluation of individual characteristics of patients, including their genetic make-up, to reduce treatment toxicity while increasing the quality and the duration of response.