Genomics applied to the treatment of breast cancer

Abstract

Breast cancer remains a major health issue in the world with 1.7 million new cases in 2012 worldwide. It is the second cause of death from cancer in western countries. Genomics have started to modify the treatment of breast cancer, and the developments should become more and more significant, especially in the present era of treatment personalization and with the implementation of new technologies. With molecular signatures, genomics enabled a de-escalation of chemotherapy and personalized treatments of localized forms of estrogen-dependent breast cancers. Genomics can also make a real contribution to constitutional genetics, so as to identify mutations in a panel of candidate genes. In this review, we will discuss the contributions of genomics applied to the treatment of breast cancer, whether already validated contributions or possible future applications linked to research data.