Changing cancer representations toward comprehensive portraits to empower patients in their care journey
M.A. Franzoi1 ∙ A. Bayle2,3 ∙ I. Vaz-Luis1
Advances in the field of precision medicine are revolutionizing cancer treatment.1 Agnostic treatment approaches that focus on disease biology are being increasingly tested,2 leading to clinical progress and drug approvals.3,4 In addition, consistent data are highlighting the impact of the host in tumor response and prognosis.5,6 Therefore contemporary oncology care plans go way beyond the primary anatomic tumor location and encompass cancer in its entire individual complexity including both biological (intrinsic to the patient or to the disease and its microenvironment) and nonbiological factors (socioeconomic, cultural, environmental, behavioral). Technological progress allows for faster integration and analysis of multimodal omics data, leading to accelerated biomarker discovery.7-9 Consequently, our understanding of cancer complexity and heterogeneity is set to evolve at a rapid pace in the coming years.
In recognition of the heterogeneity of knowledge among oncologists and the gaps in delivering guideline-concordant treatments across hospitals within and between countries, efforts from medical societies and the pharmaceutical and technology industries were created to continuously educate physicians on precision medicine.10-13 In addition, initiatives exist to develop and deploy clinical decision support software to assist physicians in their decision making.14-17 However, a similar focus on educating citizens and patients about the complexities of cancer is lacking and their perception of cancer has remained limited mainly to its anatomical location. This minimalist vision of cancer among patients may give rise to several issues (Figure 1).
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