Providing Physicians and Patients with Individualized Cancer
Tumor Analysis There is a tremendous need for new ways to manage
and treat cancer, an extremely complex disease family that
accounts for almost one out of every four deaths in the United
States.1 An individual cancer contains many different
alterations based on the unique biology of that cancer patient's
disease. As a result, certain cancer patients may be more likely
than others to develop advanced disease or to respond to cancer
therapy and treatment. Until recently, we have only had limited
insight into these differences at a cancer patient's initial
diagnosis, which limited clinicians' ability to choose a cancer
therapy and treatment tailored to the individual. This is where
genomics research—the study of complex sets of genes and how
they work in our bodies' cells to influence tumor biology and
behavior (among other functions)—comes in. At Genomic Health,
genomic testing services have been developed for breast and
colon cancer, and new tests ar