EPMA position paper in cancer: current overview and future perspectives

Abstract

At present, a radical shift in cancer treatment is occurring in terms of predictive, preventive, and personalized medicine (PPPM). Individual patients will participate in more aspects of their healthcare. During the development of PPPM, many rapid, specific, and sensitive new methods for earlier detection of cancer will result in more efficient management of the patient and hence a better quality of life. Coordination of the various activities among different healthcare professionals in primary, secondary, and tertiary care requires well-defined competencies, implementation of training and educational programs, sharing of data, and harmonized guidelines. In this position paper, the current knowledge to understand cancer predisposition and risk factors, the cellular biology of cancer, predictive markers and treatment outcome, the improvement in technologies in screening and diagnosis, and provision of better drug development solutions are discussed in the context of a better implementation of personalized medicine. Recognition of the major risk factors for cancer initiation is the key for preventive strategies (EPMA J. 4(1):6, 2013). Of interest, cancer predisposing syndromes in particular the monogenic subtypes that lead to cancer progression are well defined and one should focus on implementation strategies to identify individuals at risk to allow preventive measures and early screening/diagnosis. Implementation of such measures is disturbed by improper use of the data, with breach of data protection as one of the risks to be heavily controlled. Population screening requires in depth cost-benefit analysis to justify healthcare costs, and the parameters screened should provide information that allow an actionable and deliverable solution, for better healthcare provision.

Efficacy of nanoceria for periodontal tissues alteration in glutamate-induced obese rats—multidisciplinary considerations for personalized dentistry and prevention

“…The number of people with obesity was projected doubled by 2025 [1]. Obesity and metabolic syndrome has been profoundly studied by experts of the European Association for Predictive, Preventive and Personalised Medicine (EPMA) [2][3][4][5][6][7], and effective solutions by predictive, preventive and personalized medicine (PPPM) were consequently suggested considering a sensitive balance between health and disease in individuals; environmental factors in epidemics and an interplay between a genetic component, epigenetic regulations, and environmental factors [4]. In Ukraine, more than a half of the adult population is overweight, which is certainly due to the low level of physical activity, eating behavior features, increase in diet-dense foods and carbohydrate and wide and uncontrolled use of food industry and online catering food additives, especially monosodium glutamate (MSG) [8].…”

“…Biomarkers from oral cavity [6,11] might include fucoproteins and proteoglycans of connective tissue with serum glycoconjugates as the specific diagnostic and or prognostic biomarker panels in oral diseases [26] used for the patient stratification with variety of diseases by evaluation of saliva / oral cavity biomarkers to predict therapy responses [38].…”

Consideration of Statistical vs. Biological Significances for Omics Data-Based Pathway Network Analysis

“…1): (i) from macrocosmic view to microcosmic view, which is from anatomy, histology, cytobiolgy, molecular biology, to structural biology. (ii) From traditional single parameter strategy to multiparameter systematic strategy [1,2,10,11] , because a traditional single-molecule biomarker is based on an unrealistic assumption that an increase in the amount of a single compound can unambiguously specify a disease [10] . Whereas, the reality is that cancer is a whole-body disease that alters in different levels of multiple genes, multiple proteins, and multiple metabolites, involves multiple causes, multiple processes, and multiple consequences; No a single molecule, or single signaling pathway is able to resolve all problems of a cancer.…”

“…The rapid development of biological omics (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, peptidomics, and metabolomics) [1,2] and systems biology [3][4][5] is driving personalized precision medicine [6] . Biological statistics plays a key role in this process to obtain important information from those complicated omics data and phenotype data [7][8][9] .…”

Clinical utility of pretreatment prediction of chemoradiotherapy response in rectal cancer: a review

“…Personalized treatment has become a major topic in oncology [1,2]. Currently, two conflicting views are held on the tailored management of locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC, stage II or III).…”