Principles Of Personalized Cancer Medicine

The role of molecular genetics in the treatment of malignancy continues to grow at an astonishing rate. Today’s subspecialized multidisciplinary approach to oncology has incorporated advances in targeted molecular therapy, prognosis, risk assessment, and prevention—all based at least in part on molecular diagnostics and imaging. Inside this cutting-edge resource, readers will explore broad, comprehensive perspectives on the current trends in molecular diagnosis of cancer and personalized cancer medicine. Authoritative discussions share insights from noted experts in cancer research, clinical trials, molecular diagnostics, personalized therapy, bioinformatics, and federal regulations. From the basic mechanisms of carcinogenesis to the most advanced molecular screening, staging, and treatment technologies, readers will discover clear and straightforward discussions directly relevant to patient diagnosis and care.

Personalized cancer medicine studies human genes in different types of cancers. This field of medicine is helpful in designing more efficient treatments by utilising genetic information for developing different tests for cancer and the ways for preventing it. Standard cancer treatments are divided into four categories, which include chemotherapy, surgery, immunotherapy and radiation therapy. The patient's active participation is crucial to enhance the effectiveness of personalized medicines. It has fewer side effects than other forms of treatment, as it is designed to be more precise. A personalized treatment will not target the healthy cells and can have greater impact on cancer cells. Targeted therapy is one of the examples of personalized cancer medicine, which can be used to treat brain cancer, cervical cancer, breast cancer, liver cancer and pancreatic cancer. This book explores all the important principles of personalized cancer medicine. It presents researches and studies performed by experts across the globe. This book is appropriate for students seeking detailed information in this area of medicine as well as for experts.

Nowhere is the explosion in comprehensive genomic testing more evident than in oncology. Multiple consensus guidelines now recommend molecular testing as the standard of care for most metastatic tumors. To aid in the advancement of this rapidly changing field, we intend this Special Issue of JPM to focus on technical developments in the genomic profiling of cancer, detail promising somatic alterations that either are, or have a high likelihood of being, relevant in the near future, and to address issues related to the pricing and value of these tests. The last few years have seen the cost of molecular testing decrease by orders of magnitude. In 2018, we saw the first "site-agnostic" drug approvals in cancer (for microsatellite unstable cancer (PD-1 inhibitors) and NTRK-fusions (TRK inhibitors)). Research on targetable mutations, determination of genetic "signatures" that can use multiple individual genes/pathways, development of targeted therapy, and insight into the value of new technology remains at the cutting edge of research in this field. We are soliciting papers that present new technologies to assess predictive biomarkers in cancer, original research (pre-clinical or clinical) that demonstrates promise for particular targeted therapies in cancer, and articles that explore the clinical and financial impacts of this paradigmatic shift in cancer diagnostics and treatment.

At the time of the first edition of Principles of Cancer Biotherapy in 1987, this book represented the first comprehensive textbook on biological therapy. In 1991, when the second edition was published, there was still some doubt on the part of many oncologists and cancer researchers as to the therapeutic value of these new approaches. By 2003 and the fourth edition, it was generally agreed that biopharmaceuticals were producing major opportunities for new cancer therapies. Cancer biotherapy has now truly matured into the fourth modality of cancer treatment. This fifth revised edition describes the tremendous progress that has been made in recent years using biologicals in cancer treatment. This book summarizes an evolving science and a rapidly changing medical practice in biotherapy. In this new millennium, it is now possible to envision a much more diversified system of cancer research and treatment that will afford greater opportunities for a patient’s personalized cancer treatment. This was first envisioned in the 1987 initial edition of this textbook and is now a “new” and popular approach to cancer treatment. Some forms of cancer biotherapy use the strategy of tumor stabilization and control through continued biological therapy, akin to the use of insulin in the treatment of diabetes. This textbook illustrates new methods of thinking and new strategies for control of cancer. It is always difficult to move from past dogma to future opportunity, but this fifth edition of Principles of Cancer Biotherapy illustrates why it is so important to the patients for researchers and clinicians to explore and quickly apply these new opportunities in cancer biotherapy.

This book explains how current medicines against cancer work and how we find new ones. It provides an easy-to-understand overview of current options to treat patients with cancer, which includes Surgery, Radiation therapy, Chemotherapy, Targeted therapy and Immunotherapy. The efficiency of all these treatments is limited by the capacity of cancer cells to escape therapy. This book explains the mechanisms of anti-cancer drug resistance and strategies to overcome it. The discovery and development process of a new drug is detailed beginning with the identification and validation of a therapeutic target, the identification of an inhibitor of the target and its subsequent preclinical and clinical development until its approval by regulatory authorities. Particular emphasis has been given to specific aspects of the development process including lead generation and optimization, pharmacokinetics, ADME analysis, pharmacodynamics, toxicity and efficacy assessment, investigational new drug (IND) and new drug application (NDA) and the design of clinical trial and their phases. The book covers many aspects of modern personalized oncology and discusses economic aspects of our current system of developing new medicines and its impact on our societies and on future drug research. The author of this book, Dr. Link counts with more than 20 years of experience in biomedical research reflected in numerous publications, patents and key note and plenary presentations at international conferences. Interested readers, students and teachers should read this book as it provides a unique way to learn/teach about basic concepts in oncology and anti-cancer drug research.

Personalized and precision medicine (PPM)—the targeting of therapies according to an individual’s genetic, environmental, or lifestyle characteristics—is becoming an increasingly important approach in health care treatment and prevention. The advancement of PPM is a challenge in traditional clinical, reimbursement, and regulatory landscapes because it is costly to develop and introduces a wide range of scientific, clinical, ethical, and socioeconomic issues. PPM raises a multitude of economic issues, including how information on accurate diagnosis and treatment success will be disseminated and who will bear the cost; changes to physician training to incorporate genetics, probability and statistics, and economic considerations; questions about whether the benefits of PPM will be confined to developed countries or will diffuse to emerging economies with less developed health care systems; the effects of patient heterogeneity on cost-effectiveness analysis; and opportunities for PPM’s growth beyond treatment of acute illness, such as prevention and reversal of chronic conditions. This volume explores the intersection of the scientific, clinical, and economic factors affecting the development of PPM, including its effects on the drug pipeline, on reimbursement of PPM diagnostics and treatments, and on funding of the requisite underlying research; and it examines recent empirical applications of PPM.

This book adopts an integrated and workflow-based treatment of the field of personalized and precision medicine (PPM). Outlined within are established, proven and mature workflows as well as emerging and highly-promising opportunities for development. Each workflow is reviewed in terms of its operation and how they are enabled by a multitude of informatics methods and infrastructures. The book goes on to describe which parts are crucial to discovery and which are essential to delivery and how each of these interface and feed into one-another. Personalized and Precision Medicine Informatics provides a comprehensive review of the integrative as well as interpretive nature of the topic and brings together a large body of literature to define the topic and ensure that this is the key reference for the topic. It is an unique contribution that is positioned to be an essential guide for both PPM experts and non-experts, and for both informatics and non-informatics professionals.

Advances in the technology used in personalized medicine and increased applications for clinical use have created a need for this expansion and revision of Kewal K. Jain’s Textbook of Personalized Medicine. As the first definitive work on this topic, this book reviews the fundamentals and development of personalized medicine and subsequent adoptions of the concepts by the biopharmaceutical industry and the medical profession. It also discusses examples of applications in key therapeutic areas, as well as ethical and regulatory issues, providing a concise and comprehensive source of reference for those involved in healthcare management, planning and politics. Algorithms are included as a guide to those involved in the management of important diseases where decision-making is involved due to the multiple choices available. Textbook of Personalized Medicine, Second Edition will serve as a convenient source of information for physicians, scientists, decision makers in the biopharmaceutical and healthcare industries and interested members of the public.