Doctors have begun analysing the tumours of 9,000 patients as part of a major drive to create a DNA database which could revolutionise the way cancer is treated.
One of the major obstacles in the fight against cancer is the fact the disease varies from patient to patient, even if it is located in the same part of the body.
Treatments for a particular type of cancer might be extremely likely to work in some patients but stand little chance of helping others because of the genetic make-up of their tumour.
This means some patients can be exposed to unnecessary courses of therapy which are expensive, have dangerous side effects and are unlikely to make them better.
Currently a patient might be tested for a single gene if studies have shown it responds best to certain drugs, but there is no system for testing a broader panel of genes and sharing that information quickly between labs.
Now over the next two years, dedicated centres across the country will collect tumour samples from thousands of patients diagnosed at the early stage of a wide range of cancers and test each for a handful of key genes.
Source: The Telegraph