Personalized diagnostics & Challenges and opportunities for cancer treatment when employing personalized diagnostics

What is personalized diagnostics?

Personalized diagnostic tests are used to detect patient-to-patient variations in gene or protein expression levels, which act as indicators for drug treatments or disease prognosis.

A key component of personalized medicine includes advanced testing of a patient's genetic information to help identify targeted treatment options.

Examples of personalized cancer medicine

Targeted therapy- Targeted treatment targets specific genes and proteins that allow a certain cancer to grow and survive.

Cancers with targeted treatment options for some patients include:

1. Bladder cancer

2. Brain cancer

3. Breast cancer

4. Cervical cancer

5. Colorectal cancer

6. Endometrial cancer

7. Esophageal cancer

8. Head and neck cancer

9. Gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST)

10. Kidney cancer

11. Leukemia

12. Liver cancer

13. Lymphoma

14. Lung cancer

15. Melanoma

16. Multiple myeloma

17. Neuroblastoma

18. Neuroendocrine tumors

19. Pancreatic cancer

20. Prostate cancer

21. Soft tissue sarcoma

22. Stomach cancer

23. Thyroid cancer

24. Some types of childhood cancers

Advantages/Benefits

Personalized cancer medicine can have fewer side effects than other types of treatment. This is because it is designed to be more specific.

Disadvantages

A person may process a certain drug faster than most people do. So it goes through their system more quickly. This would mean the person may need a higher dose for the drug to work as well as it does for most people. Or, the person might process a drug more slowly than most people. So it stays in their bloodstream longer than usual and so they might have more side effects or need a lower dose.

Challenges

Personalized cancer medicine can make cancer treatment more effective, with fewer side effects. But there are still some challenges. These include:

1. Personalized treatment is not available for all types and subtypes of cancer

2. A personalized treatment may affect healthy cells less and cells involved in cancer more

3. Some personalized treatments are only available in clinical trials

4. Genetic testing can be expensive. Insurance plans do not always pay for it. Also, testing your genes and the genes in your tumor takes time. This can mean you wait longer to get the personalized treatment

5. Some personalized treatments, such as targeted treatments, can be expensive.

Other challenges-The regulations governing personalized medicine can be complicated because they encompass in vitro diagnostic systems and laboratory tests as well as methods of disease treatment and patient care.

Industry, academia, medicine, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are all involved in the cultivation of the field: substantial collaborations between drug developers and regulatory authorities are required to consider and shape emerging regulations as personalized drug strategies mature.