Preparing for the Era of Precision Medicine to Improve Individualized Outcomes in Women with Breast Cancer
Rygiel Katarzyna11Department of Family Practice, Medical University of Silesia (SUM), Zabrze, Poland Medical University of Silesia (SUM), Zabrze, Polan,
Breast cancer (BC) is the most common cancer type among women worldwide. Patients with BC and survivors of BC often experience a plethora of undesirable, anticancer therapy-related symptoms, which deteriorate their quality of life (QoL). For this reason, the development of treatment strategies BC, which are effective, safe, and tolerable is certainly needed. Personalized medicine offers therapeutic options that are tailored to the individual needs of each patient. In addition to the development of modern target therapies, there is an important need to combat some common adverse effects of standard therapies for BC. This article presents some recent research findings that identify selected genetic changes, which are associated with the occurrence and severity of adverse effects of the BC therapies. It focuses on typical side effects of current anticancer treatments, which reduce the QoL of BC patients and survivors. In particular, it addresses pain [including chemotherapy (CHT)-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) and lymphedema], depression, cognitive dysfunction, premature menopause, and CHT-induced menopause. It introduces some potential interventions [e.g., using nicotinamide riboside (NR) and melatonin], targeted for women with BC, who suffer from CIPN, as well as nutritional/exercise programs for necessary lifestyle modifications to reduce obesity and the risk of BC recurrence among BC survivors. As a consequence, the described approaches may be helpful in planning personalized treatment, facilitate the patient’s tolerability of many currently available anticancer therapies, optimize the medication selection or dosage, and improve the patients QoL. Keywords: Breast cancer (BC), chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), depression, pain, personalized medicine, quality of life (QoL)
Cite This Article
Katarzyna R. Preparing for the Era of Precision Medicine to Improve Individualized Outcomes in Women with Breast Cancer. EJMO. 2019; 3(4): 236-245
Corresponding Author: Rygiel Katarzyna