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Integration of Wet and Dry Bench Processes Optimizes Targeted Next-generation Sequencing of Low-quality and Low-quantity Tumor Biopsies
Published on: April 11, 2016
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Precision medicine for cancer with next-generation functional diagnostics
Adam A Friedman1, Anthony Letai2, David E Fisher1,3
1Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Harvard Medical School, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02114, USA.
Nature Reviews. Cancer
|November 6, 2015
Summary
Precision medicine aims to match patients with the right cancer drugs. Functional testing of patient tumor cells offers a promising approach to overcome limitations of genomics alone for personalized cancer therapy.
Area of Science:
- Oncology
- Translational Medicine
- Cancer Diagnostics
Background:
- Precision medicine in oncology often relies heavily on genomics.
- Genomic approaches are limited by incomplete understanding of genotype-phenotype relationships in cancer.
- Current functional testing methods for chemosensitivity have limitations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To highlight the limitations of genomics-based precision oncology.
- To introduce next-generation functional diagnostic technologies for cancer.
- To propose an integrated diagnostic strategy for personalized cancer therapy.
Main Methods:
- Review of novel functional diagnostic technologies for tumor analysis.
- Comparison of new methods with older chemosensitivity tests.
- Discussion of integrating functional testing with genomic and immunoprofiling data.
Main Results:
- Next-generation functional diagnostics offer improved tumor manipulation and response assays.
- These advanced methods address limitations of traditional chemosensitivity testing.
- Emerging technologies enable more precise assessment of drug responses in patient tumors.
Conclusions:
- Functional testing of live patient tumor cells is crucial for precision medicine.
- Integrating functional tests with genomics and immunoprofiling can enhance treatment matching.
- This integrated approach promises more precise combination therapies for individual cancer patients.
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