About this Research Topic
Precision medicine in cancer is an emerging approach for tumor prevention and treatment that takes into account patient’s individual variations in genes, environment, and lifestyle. This approach wishes to match the right drugs to the right patients. The power of new technologies arouses a future diagnostic strategy that integrates functional testing with next-generation sequencing and immunoprofiling to precisely match combination therapies to individual cancer patients.
It is also well known that endogenous immune responses play a key role in the recognition and elimination of cancer cells (“immunosurveillance”), and the ability of tumor cells to avoid immune destruction is now a recognized hallmark of cancer. This feature of cancer has served as a foundation for the emerging field of immuno-oncology, a scientific discipline that reflects the intersection between tumor immunology, cancer biology, and cancer immunotherapy.
According to the new strategies, including immunotherapy and targeted therapy, the challenge for clinicians is to understand how to use these agents together in order to provide greater clinical benefit for the patients. Potential regimens may include a “sequenced” approach, where one treatment is used first and then followed by a switch to a second treatment only after progression of disease or a defined number of weeks later or where two or more treatments are used concurrently or in “combination” for the treatment. Moreover, bioinformatic algorithms are being developed to predict sensitivity to therapies in individuals. These algorithms will drive the decision to administer a treatment in the next decades. Several trials are now testing whether these algorithms are medically useful improving outcomes.
We believe that this Research Topic, entitled "Precision Medicine: an Approach of Multiple Targeted Therapy in Cancer" and argued by leading scientists, will provide the progress made in this field and give further insights into the molecular mechanisms of response to cancer therapy.
It is also well known that endogenous immune responses play a key role in the recognition and elimination of cancer cells (“immunosurveillance”), and the ability of tumor cells to avoid immune destruction is now a recognized hallmark of cancer. This feature of cancer has served as a foundation for the emerging field of immuno-oncology, a scientific discipline that reflects the intersection between tumor immunology, cancer biology, and cancer immunotherapy.
According to the new strategies, including immunotherapy and targeted therapy, the challenge for clinicians is to understand how to use these agents together in order to provide greater clinical benefit for the patients. Potential regimens may include a “sequenced” approach, where one treatment is used first and then followed by a switch to a second treatment only after progression of disease or a defined number of weeks later or where two or more treatments are used concurrently or in “combination” for the treatment. Moreover, bioinformatic algorithms are being developed to predict sensitivity to therapies in individuals. These algorithms will drive the decision to administer a treatment in the next decades. Several trials are now testing whether these algorithms are medically useful improving outcomes.
We believe that this Research Topic, entitled "Precision Medicine: an Approach of Multiple Targeted Therapy in Cancer" and argued by leading scientists, will provide the progress made in this field and give further insights into the molecular mechanisms of response to cancer therapy.
Keywords: Precision medicine, multiple targeted therapy, cancer therapy
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