Personalized and Precision Medicine in Cancer

The term precision and personalized medicine also means precision oncology and genomic medicine. The primary aim of this approach of treatment is to deliver the right cancer drug to the right cancer patient at the right time with the right dosage. Till date, the primary modality of cancer treatment is surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy depending on the extent of the disease. The variable behavior and nature of cancer along with tumor heterogeneity and adverse effects of chemo-irradiation has led to the emergence of precision and personalized medicine. Personalized and precision medicine in cancer pertains to treatment options according to changes in certain genes or proteins in a person’s cancer cells. The molecular changes leading to carcinogenesis have revolutionized cancer treatment lately. Today the choice of treatment is based on biomarker studies specific for a given tumor. The start of molecular based medicine in oncology was the use of endocrine therapy in luminal breast carcinomas. Precision medicine became popular with the approval of imatinib in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) in 2001 by the US FDA. Genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics are the core to precision and personalized medicine. The discovery of highly sensitive next-generation sequencing (NGS) has helped in the detection of specific molecular derangements in personalized and precision medicine. Targeted therapy and immunotherapy are the mainstay of treatment in precision and personalized medicine.