BENGALURU: The focus on cancer care has seen a significant shift and is now looking towards precision oncology instead of traditional approaches, such as chemotherapy. Precision oncology, as the name suggests, is a more targeted and precise methodology for managing cancer.
Precision Oncology or Targeted Therapy: Conventionally, chemotherapy has been the main-stay of treatment for several cancers. But chemotherapy is not cancer-cell specific. It kills both cancer and healthy cells, leading to side effects. This prompted researchers to shift their focus toward precise treatment modalities that could target cancer cells by inhibiting molecular pathways and this led to the emergence of precision oncology.
Lung Cancer as a Pioneer in Targeted Therapy: The identification of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and the discovery that EGFR-mutant patients benefited from oral medications that targeted this particular pathway more than conventional chemotherapy, paved the way for targeted therapy. With advancements in molecular oncology, various lung cancer subtypes can be treated with targeted therapies.
Defining precision oncology: In simple words, Precision Oncology means every cancer is diverse, even in the same broad type of cancer, for example, in lung cancer, no two patients have the same disease course or presentation. Hence, their treatment should also be different. Treatment focus should be based on tumour biology such as the subtype, individual driving factor (or genomic alteration) and treated specifically.
Newer advances in cancer management: The challenge in molecular oncology is identifying the driver mutations or abnormalities that drive cancer growth. Molecular profiling and next-generation sequencing has given us this ability to these genomic abnormalities. Here, a biopsy sample from the tumour is subjected to gene sequencing to reveal genomic abnormalities and mutations responsible for tumour growth and progression. This information is then used by oncologists to tailor treatment plans and target specific molecular pathways. This strategy of precision oncology is now becoming important in other cancers – like colon, breast, cholangiocarcinoma bladder, ovary and prostate cancer.
The development of precision oncology signifies a significant change in the way cancer is treated. By focusing on identifying certain molecular targets, more individualised and efficient treatments can be provided, leading to better patient outcomes and quality of life. The future of cancer care is being shaped by increasing usage of targeted therapies, which gives patients new opportunities of treatment and hope.
(The writer is HoD & consultant, medical oncology, Manipal Hospital Old Airport Road)