Limitations of isolated tumor cells in gastric cancer: heterogeneity requests systems biology approaches towards personalized medicine.

摘要

TO THE EDITORS:Cancer is a highly complex and heterogeneous disease. Conventional comparative effectiveness research (CER) and conventional tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) staging have clear limitations. Exploring complex biologic cancer networks based on systems biology and high-throughput technologies advances presents excellent perspectives. Perhaps attention and large research funding towards personalized cancer may lead to faster and more effective management of cancer than the currently recommended CER.