Personalized Medicine and cancer therapy

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in the world, and more than 14 million new cases and more than 8.2 million cancer related deaths in 2012. After completion of the human genome sequencing project, Significant progress in the human epigenome, proteome, and metabolome seen; One of the main achievements of this project is a better understanding of pharmacogenetics, and the potential for customizing health care for the individual has grown tremendously.Personalized medicine (PM), can be defined as studying an individual’s distinctive characteristics such as genetic variation, gender, age, family and social history, and environmental exposure in order to tailor a medical treatment regimen to that individual that will provide the most effective care. With biopsy of cancer tissue, cancer cells gene sequence will be determined and factors that cause normal cells to become mutated cells will be detected.The discovery of genetic factors predisposes cancer to successful targeting, will eventually lead to a more individualized treatment approach.Taking advantage of specific biomarkers in cancer cells, one of the best methods of treatment is based on personalized medicine.Some important things has been done today, can be noted to: early diagnosis and treatment of esophageal cancer with use of miRNA, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) kinase inhibitors resistance mechanisms in lung cancer, innovative antibodies development to immunohistochemical proteins detection, metastatic colorectal cancer treatment by anti–epidermal growth factor (EGFR) monoclonal antibodies, Breast cancer treatment with CYP2D6 inhibitors and prostate cancer treatment with SRD5A2 variations. To date, significant progress has been made, such as ongoing genomic projects, merging translational medicine with PM, increasing advance toward personal genetic testing, and the observed evolution of conventional medicine to PM. Prevent the occurrence disease and its progression, is the most important goal of PM in the future.

Keywords:

Personalized medicine , cancer , treatment