Personalised medicine in veterinary oncology: one to cure just one

The term 'personalised medicine' is frequently used when modern medicine or the future of medicine is being described. Although the term basically implies that patients are individuals and should be treated as such, its modern meaning embraces a major leap by combining diagnostics and therapy. Thus, personalised medicine as presently understood seeks mainly to improve the effectiveness of therapeutic measures by tailoring therapy protocols according to the molecular genotype and phenotype of the individual patient. This has been facilitated by the introduction of new technologies such as next generation sequencing and proteome analysis, which has demonstrated that each tumour is much more distinctive than previously thought. Nevertheless, bioinformatics and experimental assays suggest that only a restricted number of driver genes or molecular pathways contribute to the development of most tumours. So, while tumour genomes have not yet been analysed in veterinary oncology, studies focused on mRNA expression and proteomic profiles of (mainly canine) tumours have already provided clinically relevant biomarkers and gene expression patterns. These data may be the start point for personalised approaches in veterinary oncology leading to better efficacy and safety of therapeutic protocols.