Discussion

The number of informative, tumour-specific, molecular biomarkers predicting the best course of treatment in cancer is likely to increase as we learn more about the underlying molecular drivers of cancer and the discovery of new medicines to combat them. As the number of predictive gene tests increase, there will be increasing demands on the tumour samples on which these tests are performed. Strategies and methods are being devised to optimise the number of predictive biomarkers analysed on a limited sample to maximise patient benefit, while still being cost effective and generating results in an acceptable time frame.