The future of cancer care and treatment lies in the concept of “personalized medicine,” a model that focuses on the individual, not just the disease. Personalized medicine in cancer care will need to use molecular signatures to match the right patients to the right drugs, first in clinical trials, then in clinical practice. This is a new paradigm in which information technology, science, and clinical treatment are combined to improve health outcomes and patient satisfaction. It will require unusually large databases, relating both molecular and clinical data, such that patients can be proactively selected for the most appropriate therapies.

There is consensus building among clinicians, scientists, and information technology professionals on seven principal areas that could dramatically affect the way therapeutics are developed and delivered to patients.

Largely limited in the past by cost, both whole genome sequencing and gene expression analyses now hold promise in helping classify patients and...

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