Molecular screening for cancer treatment

Researchers in France are taking advantage of the progress in genetic and molecular characterization to analyse the profile of individual cancer patients' tumors and, using this information, assign them to particular treatments and phase I clinical trials. In research presented at the 24th EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Dublin, Ireland (6-9 November 2012), Dr Christophe Massard, a medical oncologist and senior consultant in the early drug development unit at the Institut Gustave Roussy in Villejuif, France, described how he and his colleagues have successfully incorporated ‘molecular triaging’ into their phase I clinical trial unit, with results of patients' molecular analyses being made available within three weeks of a sample being taken. Read more here.