Personalizing Medicine in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma: The Rationale for Combination Therapies

Abstract

Personalized medicine, in which individual tumor genetics drive the selection of targeted therapies and treatment plans for each patient, has recently emerged as the next generation of cancer therapy.  Unfortunately, personalized medicine trials have had limited success in tumors that have complex combinations of disruptive genomic events, which drive differential responses to targeted therapies.  Here, we will use head and neck squamous cell carcinoma as a model for genetically complex disease and discuss novel approaches to enhance personalized medicine trials for these complicated cases.