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. 2015;3(3):10.18103/mra.v0i3.77.
doi: 10.18103/mra.v0i3.77.

Personalizing Medicine in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma: The Rationale for Combination Therapies

Andrew C Birkeland  1 , J Chad Brenner  2
Affiliations

Personalizing Medicine in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma: The Rationale for Combination Therapies

Andrew C Birkeland et al. Med Res Arch. 2015.

Abstract

Personalized medicine, in which individual tumor genetics drive the selection of targeted therapies and treatment plans for each patient, has recently emerged as the next generation of cancer therapy. Unfortunately, personalized medicine trials have had limited success in tumors that have complex combinations of disruptive genomic events, which drive differential responses to targeted therapies. Here, we will use head and neck squamous cell carcinoma as a model for genetically complex disease and discuss novel approaches to enhance personalized medicine trials for these complicated cases.

Keywords: HNSCC; Personalized Medicine; Sequencing.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Key Dysregulated Pathways in HNSCC
Core dysregulated pathways in HNSCC include receptor-tyrosine kinase mediated cell growth and proliferation, cell cycling, squamous differentiation, and cell death pathways. Mutation rates listed as obtained from the Oncomine program (Rhodes et al. 2004) using publically available sequencing results. Starred genes have targeted agents in development, as noted in Table I.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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