Personalised cancer treatment on the anvil?

Thanks to a groundbreaking research, personalised cancer treatment may soon be on the anvil.

A team at Chicago University has discovered a genetic signature which can predict whether a patient will respond to cancer therapies -- it could identify those who need drugs and radiotherapy and those needed to be treated less aggressively.

In fact, in their study, researchers have found that many cancers show abnormalities in 49 genes, collectively known as IFN-related DNA damage resistance signature (IRDS), the 'New Scientist' reported.

Subsequently, they analysed 34 different cancer cell lines and several hundred primary human cancers and found that the IRDS was associated with resistance to radiotherapy among the cell lines from certain cancers.

However, in breast cancer patients, it correctly predicted which cancers would be resistant to radiotherapy and drugs that work by causing DNA damage in dividing cells -- although not other cancer drugs.