The Future of Personalized Medicine Depends on Pathology

Personalized medicine—the delivery of individualized, targeted therapies to treat disease—is the holy grail of cancer diagnosis and treatment. The field of personalized medicine continues to rapidly evolve, with the aim of ensuring the right drug is delivered at the right dose, to the right patient, at the right time. Immuno-oncology is only one small part of this field. Cellular therapies, cancer vaccines and a number of other treatments are also beginning to emerge.

Traditionally, medical oncologists have directed a patient’s cancer care and made sure they received appropriate therapies. However, pathologists are now emerging as the leaders who will actively help shape treatment decisions.  

With this evolving role, pathologists must understand how personalized medicine can be harnessed to diagnose and treat patients with cancer.

One innovative, personalized approach is chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy. CAR T-cell therapy is the most clinically advanced of the adoptive cell transfer therapies. This approach involves collecting and using a patient’s own immune cells to treat their cancer. 

“We introduced the chimeric antigen receptor into T cells so they can recognize something they couldn’t before. This is the ultimate in personalized therapy as we take cells from the patient, engineer them and introduce those cells back into the patient,” says Michael C. Milone, MD, PhD, FASCP, a pioneer in the use of adoptive cellular therapy and a member of the ASCP Immuno-oncology (IO) Work Group. “Every patient has the product made just for them. Part of the process involves apheresis, which is part of clinical pathology.”

Also under development are additional cancer vaccines that can be injected into a tumor. The immune stimulants are designed to prompt the patient’s own immune system to recognize and destroy similar cancer cells within the body.¹

These are just a few of the innovations that are propelling cancer treatment into the 21st Century. The future of personalized medicine is promising, and ASCP is committed to helping you remain at the forefront of this new medical science with our innovative education. ASCP’s IO education is designed to: 

• increase IO‒related knowledge, skills, and competence of pathologists and laboratory professionals involved in cancer management and treatment;
• support the implementation and dissemination of best practices in IO testing, treatment options, and communication in multidisciplinary teams to improve quality of care; and
• raise awareness of new developments in the rapidly changing field of IO therapeutics.

Learn more about ASCP’s IO education by clicking here.

References

1. HealthDay, New 'Cancer Vaccine' Attacks Tumors From Within. https://consumer.healthday.com/cancer-information-5/lymphoma-cancer-news-101/new-cancer-vaccine-attacks-tumors-from-within-744879.html, Accessed Dec. 5, 2019.