Hereditary mutations and cancer management

Abstract

Over the last decade, our capacity to dissect out and identify different tissue-specific tumour subtypes has greatly expanded. The ability to classify tumours on their molecular and biochemical characteristics has already delivered improved prognostic models for some common tumours like breast cancers. The development of sophisticated tumour classification systems is a first step towards developing treatments which are tailored at the patient-specific level — so-called personalised medicine. In addition, our ability to identify the small population of tumours that have arisen due to a familial genetic predisposition has fundamentally altered our approach to the identification and management ..