From Nature:
In an approach that many doctors and scientists hope will form the medical care of the future, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston has for the past year and a half been offering people with cancer a novel diagnostic test. Instead of assessing tumours for a single mutation that will indicate whether a drug is likely to work or not, the hospital tests patients for some 150 mutations in more than a dozen cancer-causing genes, with the results being used to guide novel treatments, clinical trials and basic research. This form of personalized medicine tailors treatments on the basis of the molecular and genetic characteristics of a patient's cancer cells, potentially improving the treatment's outcome.
Now Britain is set to test whether an entire health-care system is ready for the approach. Plans were unveiled this week to deploy broad genetic testing for selected cancer patients in Britain's government-run health-care provider, the National Health Service (NHS). This form of 'stratified medicine' uses genetic information to group patients according to their likely response to a particular treatment.
More here.
