Future in esophageal cancer treatment. Precision medicine. Tumor genome sequencing. 10

Future in esophageal cancer treatment. Precision medicine. Tumor genome sequencing. 10

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Professor Rasanen, what is the future in esophageal cancer treatment? The key will be so-called precision medicine, which means that the patients will have a better-individualized treatment plan. Dr. Jari Rasanen, MD. And that's based on the genomic alterations in a patient's tumor. So, basically, in the future we will take biopsies from the tumor, and then we do a genetic map of the tumor. We are deciding the upfront treatment based on that map and also the treatment besides surgery that will be planned according to that kind of genetic maps, which which which make like the medical treatment more efficient than it is nowadays. Do you think that more sequencing of the tumor genomic side of the tumor would affect the way surgeries are done for esophageal cancer and lung cancer? I don't know whether it's going to change the surgical treatment, but certainly, it will change the treatment with different chemotherapeutic drugs. Now the protocol for chemotherapy treatment is pretty much the same for everybody. We just have to do a histological study of the tumor, and then we say that, okay, fine, we find that the tumor is adenocarcinoma of the esophagus. Then all the patients will get the same chemo treatment. But in the future, we are also doing that kind of study in our institution, where we are trying to find the best possible chemotherapy treatment for each patient. Dr. Jari Rasanen, MD. And I think that this kind of precision medicine is the key to improving the treatment results in the future. The surgery will be pretty much the same. Dr. Jari Rasanen, MD. And in my mind, I'm very excited about the future in that sense. I think that we can expect from the future studies to give us new options in the treatment of different types of cancers. Dr. Jari Rasanen, MD. And like I said, individualized treatment for each cancer patient will be the key in the future. That's something which I'm very much looking forward to see when it comes. I think that is near. In the next 10 years, we will see new inventions that will give new opportunities to the cancer patients.