Tumor tracking gets personal

Bringing genomics to cancer care

SAN DIEGO – A new way to identify cancer’s genetic scrambling may allow doctors to better monitor how individual patients respond to treatment and detect a recurrence of a tumor.

Wholesale juggling of chunks of DNA is common in cancer cells, but cataloging those changes hasn’t been easy. Now, a small study of colorectal and breast tumor cells shows that these genetic rearrangements can be reliably identified.