title: Companion diagnostics: the key to personalized medicine. Foreword.
abstract: This special focus issue of Expert Review of Molecular Diagnostics on in vitro companion diagnostics aims to provide the reader with up-to-date knowledge on this fast-evolving area of medical research. Companion diagnostics takes up a central role in the development of targeted drugs and to a large extent, the success of this type of therapy depends on their performance. Companion diagnostic assays have a single patient as a point of reference and they will be decisive for the move toward a more precise and individualized pharmacotherapy. The 'first generation' of companion diagnostic assays relies on single biomarker detection but with our increasing understanding of disease pathophysiology a new generation of assays is under development, which will be based on patient profiling and multiplex platforms.
authors.affiliation: Dx-Rx Institute, Baunevaenget 76, 3480 Fredensborg, Denmark.
authors.forename: Jan Trøst
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Jørgensen
mesh_terms: D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D025202:Molecular Diagnostic Techniques; D058990:Molecular Targeted Therapy; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000235:genetics; D057285:Precision Medicine; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
keywords: companion diagnostics; oncology; personalized medicine; precision medicine; rheumatology