Personal treatment for cancer moves a step closer

DutchNews.nl, Tuesday 12 November 2013

Cancer research (ANP)

The search for a personal approach to treatment for individual cancer patients has moved a step closer thanks to Dutch research, Nos television reports on Tuesday. 

Hans Bos, professor of molecular cancer research at Utrecht medical centre, is putting together a team of 19 researchers to broaden and deepen research into growing tumors outside the body, the broadcaster says.

The team will be financed by the cancer society KWF's annual charity campaign. The country's biggest charity, the KWF boosted its income almost 10% to €137m over the past year.

Laboratory

The team will grow tissue from a patient's tumor in the laboratory which can then be tested to see which medicine the tumor reacts to and which has no impact.

In this way, it will be possible to treat the patient quicker, with the right medicine and with fewer side-effects, Bos told Nos.

'For each type of tumor we will collect tissue from around 80 patients. The information will be collected in a databank,' he said.

Eventually, the information will mean every cancer patient can be treated specifically for the type of tumor present in the body.

Initially this will be for cancer of the intestine, prostate and pancreas.

Testing tumors outside the body was developed over the past few years, but the extension of the research means a personal approach to treating cancer moves a step closer.