Personalization of breast cancer chemotherapy using noninvasive imaging methods to detect tumor cell death responses

Abstract

31 ISSN 1758-1923 10.2217/BMT.13.58 © 2014 Future Medicine Ltd Breast Cancer Manage. (2014) 3(1), 31–35 Despite the realization that breast cancer is composed of many subtypes with unique molecular signatures that are related to chemotherapy response, the majority of chemotherapy administered is standardized, with most patients receiving anthracyclineand taxanebased treatments. For upfront chemotherapy, an opportunity exists to monitor and customize treatments adaptively, as tumors in situ can serve as a response biomarker. Noninvasive functional imaging methods that can detect early tumor response can thus begin to be used to adaptively change chemotherapy. Such tests could facilitate switches from ineffective treatments early on during chemotherapy (days to weeks), as opposed to patients receiving months of a treatment to which tumor cells do not respond. Quantitative ultrasound (QUS) is one such method that is sensitive to cell death and is being investigated as a functional breast cancer chemotherapy response imaging method. Breast cancer chemotherapy & response monitoring Oncology, as a clinical field, involves classifying tumor stages and subtypes based on anatomical and pathological findings, which includes histological examination of tumor samples from individual patients, for example HER2/neu in breast cancer. This involves identifying markers associated with prognosis, which often, but not always, portend treatment response. The history of cancer therapy suggests that there is no optimized solution for all patients and, hence, cancer treatments include the use of chemotherapy drugs, ionizing radiation, immunotherapy, gene therapy, surgery or a combination of some of these treatments. However, there are variations in tumor response to a given treatment from one patient to another due to the differences in complexity in individual tumor biology. Personalized medicine is proposed as the customization of clinical therapy based on a patient’s tumor biology. Therapy response monitoring is one of the important parts