Médecine Nucléaire et Radiothérapie

Preventing Cancer with Personalised Medicine and Treating it

Abstract

Reginald Nicholson

Cancer prevention, diagnosis, prognosis, and therapies are all impacted by the developing discipline of personalised medicine. The recent introduction of many individualised, molecularly targeted medicines with greater efficacy and/or lower toxicity into mainstream clinical practise demonstrates its significance in clinical management. The discovery of genes that increase the chance of acquiring cancer, such as the BRCA genes in breast cancer, allows screening programmes to identify patients who are "at-risk" of getting cancer and supports their choice of personal risk-reducing behaviours. The use of personalised medicine is becoming more and more significant in the fight against cancer. It is becoming increasingly evident that there are molecularly unique subtypes of some common malignancies, and that each subtype requires a particular therapeutic approach, such as the use of monoclonal antibodies in positive tumours.