Molecular diagnostics: Translation from discovery to clinical practice

Over the past decade, there has been broad publicity and discussions over the potential of “personalized medicine” to transform clinical practice in oncology. In its broad definition, personalized medicine in oncology refers to the use of biomarkers to make decisions such as the type of therapies, prognosis, and extent of monitoring of disease progression. As such, oncologists have been practicing personalized medicine throughout modern medicine where patients are treated according to clinical staging and the current understanding of specific cancer behaviors. It may be argued that even chemotherapy is personalized, not only in terms of using different chemotherapeutics for different cancer types but also for the concept of using anti-proliferation cytotoxic drugs against highly, uncontrolled proliferative cancers.