title: Precision medicine for cancer with next-generation functional diagnostics.
abstract: Precision medicine is about matching the right drugs to the right patients. Although this approach is technology agnostic, in cancer there is a tendency to make precision medicine synonymous with genomics. However, genome-based cancer therapeutic matching is limited by incomplete biological understanding of the relationship between phenotype and cancer genotype. This limitation can be addressed by functional testing of live patient tumour cells exposed to potential therapies. Recently, several 'next-generation' functional diagnostic technologies have been reported, including novel methods for tumour manipulation, molecularly precise assays of tumour responses and device-based in situ approaches; these address the limitations of the older generation of chemosensitivity tests. The promise of these new technologies suggests a future diagnostic strategy that integrates functional testing with next-generation sequencing and immunoprofiling to precisely match combination therapies to individual cancer patients.
authors.affiliation: Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Harvard Medical School, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02114, USA.
authors.forename: Adam A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Friedman
authors.affiliation: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, 440 Brookline Avenue, Mayer 430, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA.
authors.forename: Anthony
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Letai
authors.affiliation: Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Harvard Medical School, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02114, USA.|Dermatology and Cutaneous Biology Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, 149 East 13th Street, Charlestown, Massachusetts 02129, USA.
authors.forename: David E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Fisher
authors.affiliation: Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Harvard Medical School, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02114, USA.
authors.forename: Keith T
authors.initials: KT
authors.lastname: Flaherty
mesh_terms: D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods*; D059014:High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D025202:Molecular Diagnostic Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000235:genetics*; D057285:Precision Medicine