title: Clinical cancer genome and precision medicine.
abstract: Revolutionary sequencing technologies have changed biomedical research and life science exponentially. Revealing the whole landscape of causal somatic and inherited mutations underlying individual patient's cancer sample by whole-genome sequencing (WGS) and whole-exome sequencing (WES) can lead to not only a new mutations-based taxonomy of solid tumors (Stratton, Science 331:1553-1558, 2011). But also shapes a roadmap for precision medicine (Roychowdhury et al., Sci Transl Med 3:111ra121, 2011; Roukos, Expert Rev Mol Diagn 12:215-218, 2012; Mirnezami et al., N Engl J Med 366:489-491, 2012). This inevitable approach for personalized diagnostics in concert with free-falling genome sequencing costs raises now the question of applying next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology in the clinic. In the pragmatic clinical world and in contrast to innovative research, is NGS-based clinical evidence sufficient for decision-making on tailoring the best available treatment to the individual cancer patient?
authors.forename: Dimitrios H
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Roukos
authors.forename: Chee-Seng
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Ku
mesh_terms: D015894:Genome, Human; D006801:Humans; D058990:Molecular Targeted Therapy; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics / Q000628:therapy*; D057285:Precision Medicine