Personalized medicine in breast cancer: a systematic review

Abstract

The recent advent of "-omics" technologies have heralded a new era of personalized medicine. Personalized medicine is referred to as the ability to segment heterogeneous subsets of patients whose response to a therapeutic intervention within each subset is homogeneous. This new paradigm in healthcare is beginning to affect both research and clinical practice. The key to success in personalized medicine is to uncover molecular biomarkers that drive individual variability in clinical outcomes or drug responses. In this review, we begin with an overview of personalized medicine in breast cancer and illustrate the most encountered statistical approaches in the recent literature tailored for uncovering gene signatures.