Taking the data and findings into the real-world setting

Targeted therapy and mutation analyses are all the rage as we try to expand our ever burgeoning pipeline of biologic or targeted therapies so that we can either complement or even replace chemotherapy. Each year at this time, practicing oncologists keenly await the release of new clinical and therapeutic data at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Yet I am reminded that some things never change, even in this exciting era of molecular targeting. For example, after one has delivered a diagnosis of cancer in the curative setting, after surgery a patient will still ask if he/she will need further (adjuvant) therapy.