30. Current Approaches to Identify and Evaluate Cancer Biomarkers for Patient Stratification

Summary

The requirement for more effective treatments for cancer is highlighted by the failure rate of many therapies, thereby necessitating more “targeted” approaches, based on an understanding of the molecular features of the individual cancer and patient status at time of diagnosis and treatment. Whether treatment is based on surgery, radiotherapy, or chemotherapy, or gene or immunotherapy, a proportion of patients will fail to respond and progress their disease. In this review we have focused on breast cancer as a heterogeneous disease where a need to stratify “low” from “high” risk patients and therapy “responders” from “nonresponders” is apparent. The application of high-throughput technologies results in a complexity of molecular features that requires bioinformatic data mining to identify important genotypic and proteomic traits associated with clinical utility. The potential combination of “omic” platforms provides an attractive means of gaining knowledge of the main characteristics associated with patient status.