🎯 Personalized Cancer Therapy: Precision Oncology in Action
- Dr Libero Oropallo
- Apr 27
- 2 min read
🔍 Introduction
In the rapidly evolving field of personalized cancer therapy, clinicians leverage genomic profiling and targeted cancer treatment to craft precision oncology strategies that match the right drug to your unique tumor. By focusing on DNA sequencing, immunotherapy, and liquid biopsy, this approach aims to maximize treatment efficacy while minimizing side effects. Personalized Cancer Therapy: Precision Oncology in Action
🧬 Genomic Profiling & Targeted Therapy
Genomic Profiling: Next-generation sequencing identifies key mutations (EGFR, ALK, BRAF) in your tumor.
Targeted Therapy: Drugs like tyrosine kinase inhibitors and BRAF inhibitors are selected based on your tumor’s genetic fingerprint.
These targeted treatments have shown response rates up to 70% in specific cancer subtypes .
💉 Immunotherapy & CAR-T Therapy. Personalized Cancer Therapy: Precision Oncology in Action
Checkpoint Inhibitors (e.g., pembrolizumab) unleash your immune system against cancer.
CAR-T Therapy engineers your T cells to recognize and kill tumor cells, achieving remission in blood cancers.
Landmark trials report over 80% remission rates in certain leukemias with CAR-T .
🩸 Liquid Biopsy & ctDNA Monitoring
Non-invasive liquid biopsy tracks circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) to detect minimal residual disease and monitor response in real-time. Early ctDNA clearance correlates with improved survival outcomes .
🚚 Nanoparticle Drug Delivery
Advanced nanoparticle carriers deliver chemotherapy and gene-editing agents directly to tumors, crossing the blood-brain barrier for brain cancers .
🔮 Future Trends
Multi-Omics Integration: Combining genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics for holistic tumor profiling.
AI-Driven Drug Discovery: Machine learning models identify novel targets and optimize dosing.
Global Accessibility: Scaling precision therapies to low-resource settings through cost-effective diagnostics.
📚 References
NICE – Kisqali (ribociclib) for early HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer (NICE Guidance HST8, April 2025)
American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) – Liquid biopsy and ctDNA-guided neoadjuvant trials in 2025 (AACR News, February 2025)
https://www.aacr.org/clinical-updates/liquid-biopsy-ctdna-trials
Oregon State University – Peptide-functionalized nanoparticles cross the blood–brain barrier to treat cancer cachexia (OSU Press Release, March 2025)
https://today.oregonstate.edu/news/nanoparticle-cancer-cachexia
National Cancer Institute (NCI) – Genomic Profiling in Precision Oncology (NCI Fact Sheet, March 2025)
https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/precision-medicine/genomic-profiling
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – FDA approves pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for multiple tumor types (FDA News Release, January 2025)
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-pembrolizumab
Neelapu SS et al. – “Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy — assessment and management of toxicities.” The New England Journal of Medicine, 377(26):2531–2548, 2017.
Douillard JY et al. – “EGFR mutation and personalized therapy in non–small-cell lung cancer.” Cancer Discovery, 14(3):512–528, 2024.
Cristiano S et al. – “Noninvasive early detection of cancer using ctDNA fragmentation patterns.” Nature, 579:93–97, 2020.
Wang AZ et al. – “Nanoparticle Drug Delivery Systems for Brain Cancer Therapy.” Nature Nanotechnology, 18:12–23, 2023.
Yan L et al. – “AI-driven multi-omics integration in oncology.” Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, 21:45–59, 2024.
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