The dawn of a new era for cancer survival: Tailored treatment made ‘inoperable’ liver cancer vanish – giving new hope to patients
- Molecular profiling helps doctors identify drugs to beat individual tumours
- One patient was given new hope after inoperable liver cancer diagnosis
- The approach has been hailed as the dawn of a new era for cancer survival
It was hailed as the dawn of a new era for cancer survival – ‘personalised medicine’ that helps doctors identify the drugs most likely to beat individual tumours. Now one of the first patients to benefit from such an approach, known as molecular profiling, has revealed how the breakthrough has given him new hope after he was diagnosed with inoperable liver cancer.
The procedure, details of which were announced last week, allows doctors to analyse tumour samples to determine a unique set of biomarkers – a chemical ‘fingerprint’ of that cancer. Profiling of the tumour sample, taken during a standard biopsy, can provide information about the cancer after just one or two weeks of analysis.
This can then be used to precisely match the patient’s treatment to their particular cancer, allowing scientists to offer a bespoke treatment and reducing the use of drugs that often have brutal side effects and could be of little benefit.
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Molecular profiling gave new hope to retired company director Spartaco Dusi, 76, (pictured with his wife Giulana), after he was diagnosed with liver cancer in February at a hospital near his home in Sweden
Filed under: Cancer, Cancer, cancer survival, molecular profiling
