Genomic Profiling in Gastrointestinal Cancer: Are We Ready To Use These Data to Make Treatment Decisions?

Remarkable strides have been made in the past 10-15 years in identifying the molecular events that drive cancer. With an enormous amount of new data, including those from The Cancer Genome Atlas Project, therapies are increasingly being developed and tested in clinical trials specifically designed to target some of these molecular events. Often, molecular signatures have become more important than the histologic features in making treatment choices. The success rate of these therapies depends on many factors but, perhaps most importantly, on patient selection according to the genetic analysis results of their individual tumors. ©AlphaMed Press.