The "revolution in the understanding of cancer at the molecular level" has led to dramatic responses in cancer patients to new therapies that are targeted precisely at their particular type of tumours, according to an expert. Dr. Kapil Dhingra, a member of the executive committee for the 28th EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics that is taking place in Munich, Germany, told the meeting on December 1, 2016: "We are seeing an important shift in oncology as we move from a one-treatment-fits-all approach to an era of personalized medicine for cancer. In this new era, it is essential to discover novel, targeted drugs and to identify the patients most likely to benefit from them. This is highlighted at this meeting by several new drugs that show dramatic efficacy in patients with very advanced disease who have failed standard therapies. These drugs can be developed rapidly, based on trials involving relatively small numbers of patients. At the same time, advances in liquid biopsy technologies, in which blood is taken and analyzed to detect genetic mutations, allow clinicians and researchers to obtain a real time portrait of the patients' cancers and their responses to treatment in a non-invasive way, thereby ushering in a new era of cancer therapeutics." Dr. Dhingra, who is managing member of KAPital Consulting LLC (USA), highlighted several meeting presentations that show how new drugs can be very effective when targeted at cancers with the right molecular profile, and how liquid biopsies can accurately identify mechanisms of resistance in patients receiving targeted therapies. The highlighted presentations include the following:
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