Cancer Care Gets Personal

How Tumor Treatments Are Changing

Last year more than 1.7 million people were diagnosed with cancer in the United States. Cancer can be difficult to treat because each tumor is unique. Scientists are now gaining a better understanding of the changes that lead to cancer—and figuring out how to target them for personalized treatments.

“Cancer treatment is changing at a very fast pace,” says Dr. Patricia M. LoRusso, an NIH-funded cancer treatment expert at Yale Cancer Center. “What somebody got a year ago may not necessarily be the same treatment recommended for another person today.”

For decades, doctors have treated cancers based on where a tumor first started, such as in the lung or colon. But often, a treatment that works well for one person doesn’t work as well for another.

Research has revealed that each tumor has a unique combination of genetic changes. Cancer is…