(Newser)
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Researchers have taken a giant step toward the "holy grail" of personalized cancer treatment—by using genetic profiling to accurately target chemotherapy, Reuters reports. A new genetic test of colon cancer tumors is able to predict with accuracy whether a patient will respond to treatment with the drug Erbitux, which blocks tumor growth.
There are hundreds of expensive narrowly targeted drugs in the pipeline, and genetic testing is expected to help identify who will benefit from which drugs. "These drugs are not cheap, so if they're not going to help, we won't use them," said the lead researcher.
