Such mutations explain about 30-40% of cases in which patients fail to respond to these drugs, and mutations in another gene called BRAF could account for another 12%. Knowing this crucial information about a cancer patient’s genes will reduce sharply the number who are unnecessarily subjected to the side effects (and expense) of drugs that will not work.
KRAS基因突变能够解释药物对患者无效情形的30—40%的原因，另一种叫BRAF的基因的突变可以解释另外12%。了解癌症病患基因的这一关键信息能够显著降低因使用无效药物而产生不必要的副作用（和经济负担）的患者数量。