Quirónsalud Valencia launches a Precision Medicine Unit

The oncology service of the Quirónsalud Hospital in Valencia has set up a Precision Medicine Unit thanks to which the specialists will be able to offer a more precise and effective treatment for each patient based on the genetic profile of the cancer and the individual.

Cancer is a genetic disease caused by changes in DNA that control the way cells function. "These changes can be inherited, but most arise randomly during a person's life, either as a result of errors that occur when the cells divide or exposure to external carcinogens that damage the DNA," explains Dr. Ángel Guerrero. , specialist of the Oncology Service of Hospital Quirónsalud Valencia and head of the Precision Medicine Unit. Currently we know the vast majority of genetic alterations, or mutations, responsible for the origin, maintenance and development of cancer. "These mutations can make the tumor particularly sensitive, or resistant, to a certain drug, explains Dr. Guerrero," but thanks to precision medicine we are able to know the characteristics of the genetic alterations of each tumor and recognize the profile mutational of each patient that makes it possible to choose the therapy with the greatest chance of success and to flee from standardized therapies that, in many cases, can be ineffective in the treatment ".

To obtain a comprehensive genomic report of the tumor the patient is given the FoundationOne test, the only one approved by the US FDA, on a sample of tumor tissue, ideally on a recent metastatic lesion. "In circumstances in which it is difficult to obtain tumor tissue, a" liquid "biopsy can be performed and analyze, in the blood, using the Foundation ACT test, the circulating tumor DNA of the 62 most important genes involved in cancer," adds the specialist.

Precision oncology is particularly effective in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer, since this is a pathology in which there is a great development of very effective drugs, directed to very specific mutations. "Likewise, it is very effective in common tumors that have exhausted the therapeutic options collected in clinical guidelines, infrequent and aggressive tumors with few possibilities of response to conventional treatment and tumors of unknown origin," concludes Dr. Guerrero.