Zakaria Eltahir
Taibah University, Saudi Arabia
Title: An update on precision medicine: Esophageal adenocarcinoma and molecular testing
Biography
Biography: Zakaria Eltahir
Abstract
Gastroesophageal junction cancer or Barrett’s Adenocarcinoma (BA) is increasingly reported in the last four decades. In the Western world esophageal cancer reporting has shifted from SSC to AD. Evidence for some benefits from surveillance found could safe many patients’ lives at risk and relatively cost-effective. Clinical and scientific communities are faced by attempts to reduce mortality of BA as well as failure to detect most cases while at curable stage. It has been a real challenge to distinguish between patients who might develop cancer from those who wouldn’t. Indeed, diagnosis has been on debate and variable between different diagnostic schools, particularly for the LGD stage. Molecular markers are urgently needed to facilitate early tumorigenesis detection and to probably help in providing personalize cancer therapies. The ToGA (Trastuzumab for Gastric Cancer) project findings lead to the effective Trastuzumab (Herceptin) medicine to treat gastric and gastroesophageal patients and was approved by FDA in 2010. Her2-neu gene over expression assessment, after successfully used to eliminate those patients with mutated gene in breast cancer patients has provided a vital cure for about 25-30% of BA as in gastric cancer patients. Research in pathogenesis, biomarkers and clinical practice in precision medicine as future directions will be discussed.
