ABSTRACT
The interaction between cancer cells and the stroma—which usually comprises genetically stable cells and the extracellular matrix (ECM)—together constitute a "tumor microenvironment" (TME), a paradigm considered one of the typical hallmarks of cancer. Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are functionally distinct from their normal counterparts and frequently demonstrate pathological relevance. Personalized cancer therapy (PCT) takes advantage of informative clues from the tumor and its microenvironment, together with distinct conditions of the patient, to tailor therapeutic regimes and treat the disease more effectively with less toxicity. It delivers a similar concept with "individualized cancer therapy" (ICT) designs strategies for a person diagnosed with cancer, through covering drug sensitivity testing, cancer biomarkers and bioinformatics detection, pharmacogenetics, individualized antimetastatic therapy, drug combinations, assistant chemotherapy, cost-effectiveness consideration, and guidelines for utilization/reimbursement of molecular diagnosis. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) enables genome-wide personalized oncology efforts with the specialty and infrastructure necessary for identification and prioritization of tumor genome variants, as piloted by the Oncomine Comprehensive Panel (OCP).
