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Editorial
February 24, 2015

Precision Medicine to Improve the Risk and Benefit of Cancer Care: Genetic Factors in Vincristine-Related Neuropathy

Author Affiliations
  • 1DeBartolo Family Personalized Medicine Institute, Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida
  • 2Xiangya Hospital, Institute of Clinical Pharmacology, Central South University, Changsha, China
JAMA. 2015;313(8):803-804. doi:10.1001/jama.2015.1086

The past decade has seen important advances in the treatment of many cancers, with curative therapies for a few and extension of quantity and quality of life for others.1-3 For example, clarifying the role of both growth factor cell signaling and immunologic checkpoints in advanced melanoma has produced kinase inhibitors and immunotherapy drugs that each produce longer patient survival than any previous treatments. These improvements reflect efforts in pharmacology and cancer biology and the success of translating the biochemical, pharmacological, immunological, and molecular findings into treatments. This has allowed the practical emergence of personalized medicine for cancer management, whereby genetic variants, gene expression, and other patient factors allow for more objective selection of therapeutic regimens, individualized dosing of drugs, and the possibility of avoiding drug toxicity.1

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