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Personalized cancer medicine—advances and socio-economic challenges

Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology volume 8, pages 735–741 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

It was Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, who first emphasized the patient as the most important determinant of therapeutic efficacy. Although the principle of adjusting treatment to specific patient characteristics has since been the strategy of physicians, this is undermined by a population-biased approach to drug development. Therefore, it is generally true to say that our current evidential approach to cancer treatment is driven more by drug-regulation requirements and market considerations than the specific needs of an individual patient. But, with cancer drug costs now spiraling out of control and the modest efficacy typically seen in patients, the community is again turning to Hippocrates' ancient paradigm—this time with emphasis on molecular considerations. Rapidly evolving technologies are empowering us to describe the molecular 'nature' of a patient and/or tumor and with this has come the beginning of truly personalized medicine, with maximized efficacy, cost effectiveness and hopefully improved survival for the patient.

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Figure 1: The monthly costs of oncology drugs at the time of FDA approval (1965–2008).
Figure 2: Overview of the 3R principle.

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Acknowledgements

Portions of work presented here were supported by grants from the NIH (CA109298, CA110793, CA083639, CA098258 and U54 CA151668), Department of Defense (OC073399, OC093146 and BC085265), a Program Project Development Grant from the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, the Marcus Foundation, the Gynecologic Cancer Foundation, the Blanton–Davis Ovarian Cancer Research Program, the RGK Foundation, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, and the Betty Ann Asche Murray Distinguished Professorship.

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  1. LIFE Biosystems GmbH, Belfortstraβe 2, Heidelberg, D 69115, Germany

    David B. Jackson

  2. Departments of Gynecologic Oncology and Cancer Biology, and Center for RNA Interference and Non-Coding RNA, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, 1155 Herman Pressler, Unit 1362, Houston, 77030, TX, USA

    Anil K. Sood

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D. B. Jackson is an employee of LIFE Biosystems. A. K. Sood declares no competing interests.

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Jackson, D., Sood, A. Personalized cancer medicine—advances and socio-economic challenges. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 8, 735–741 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrclinonc.2011.151

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