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A study of kidney cancer patients finds the complexity of tumors may thwart simple attempts to personalize treatment.

A study of kidney cancer patients finds the complexity of tumors may thwart simple attempts to personalize treatment.

Cancer may be even more complicated than everybody already thought. And that's why a single tissue sample taken from a single tumor may not be the best way to figure out a course of treatment.

British researchers took multiple samples within kidney tumors (before and after drug treatment) and also got samples from tumors that had spread from the original cancers in four patients.

They performed all kinds of genetic tests, including detailed DNA sequencing, on the cancers and found wide variations in some key traits.

"We used every possible genomics technique available," senior author Charles Swanton told science blogger Ed Yong. "Even then we are only scratching the surface of the complexity within each cancer."

Even so, they found that some genetic variations that would be considered unfavorable for patients and others that would be good news for them were present in different parts of the same tumor.

Those results help explain why some treatments that seem like a good idea may not work. And they underscore the challenge in developing personalized tests and drugs for cancer therapy.

"It's a sobering finding," Andrew Futreal, a cancer geneticist and co-author of the study told The Wall Street Journal. The work was published in the latest New England Journal of Medicine.

Read more:
Detailed Genetic Tests Reveal Cancer's Complexity

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