Individualized cancer therapy: molecular approaches to the prediction of tumor response

A major issue with current cancer therapy is how to ensure the maximum benefit with minimum toxicity for individual patients. With the progress of the human genome project have come high-throughput technologies for the analysis of DNA, gene expression or tumor protein in an efficient and quantitative manner. This review will highlight areas of progress with use of molecular approaches to improve the prediction of tumor response, towards the goal of optimized therapy for each individual patient.