Cancer treatments are steadily increasing with advancement in scientific research and experimentation. However, with so many treatment options, it is becoming more difficult to know which treatment will have the most success. Two cell-driven treatments are exciting and show much promise in personalized cancer treatment. “Targeted therapy is a special type of chemotherapy that takes advantage of small differences between normal cells and cancer cells (What is Targeted Cancer Therapy, 2014). ‘Pharmacogenomics is the study of how genes and genetic information influences the action of a drug (What is Pharmacogenomics, n.d.). In this paper, we will discuss the benefits of targeted therapy and pharmacogenomics in cancer therapy as well as some concerns for this relatively new treatment.
Targeted Therapy works by pin pointing the mutation that occurs in specific cancers where the targeted therapy drug attacks only the cancer cells, with less impact to the healthy cells. Targeted therapy is often used
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This personalized medicine can, in theory, be used to help any ailment that scientists have (1) found treatments for and (2) knowledge of how those treatments work on different genetic information. “The promise of pharmacogenomics lies in its potential to help identify sources of inter-individual variability in drug response (both effectiveness and toxicity); this information will make it possible to individualize therapy with the intent of maximizing effectiveness and minimizing risk (F.D.A., 2005, p. 2).” The genetic code of our cells can provide doctors with information as to the best form of treatment for our specific ailment. The Cancer Genome Atlas Project is in charge of identifying and recording the various mutations involved in cancer, which will hopefully allow for the major mutations in a variety of cancers to be identified (Lobo,