30 October 2013 Last updated at 14:39 ET By Helen Briggs BBC News

Offering genetic testing to lung cancer patients can potentially save lives, research suggests.

A study of 5,000 patients found genetic profiling of lung tumours boosted survival rates through better targeting of chemotherapy drugs.

The findings, reported in Science Translational Medicine, pave the way for personalised medicine.

Cancer Research UK said matching patients to a personalised treatment is still in its infancy.

The standard way to diagnose lung cancer is to look at cells from a tumour under the microscope.

On this basis, lung cancer can be classified into different tumour types, which helps doctors make decisions about the best treatment to offer.

However, in recent years scientists have made progress towards understanding how cancer can be better treated by matching drugs to the genetic make-up of a tumour.

A team led by Dr Roman Thomas, of the Max Planck Research Group in Cologne, Germany, carried out genetic testing on lung tumour samples from about 5,000 patients to spot genetic differences in lung cancer cells.

Our findings provide support for broad implementation of genome-based diagnosis of lung cancer

Read the original here:
Gene testing raises lung cancer hope

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