Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Comment
  • Published:

Missing the target in cancer therapy

Nature Cancer volume 2, pages 369–371 (2021)Cite this article

Subjects

The deployment of molecular biomarkers that are indicative of sensitivity to tumor-targeted or immune-targeted cancer therapies improves the outcome of individual patients and increases the chances of successful drug approval. However, for many lethal malignancies, the majority of clinical trials are conducted with patients who do not have biomarkers and hence they miss the target.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Example of responders versus non-responders among hypothetical patients with cancer of unknown primary and lung metastases.

References

  1. Jardim, D. L. et al. J. Natl. Cancer Inst. 107, djv253 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Schwaederle, M. et al. J. Clin. Oncol. 33, 3817–3825 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Schwaederle, M. et al. JAMA Oncol. 2, 1452–1459 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Jardim, D. L., Groves, E. S., Breitfeld, P. P. & Kurzrock, R. Cancer Treat. Rev. 52, 12–21 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Blumenthal, G. M. et al. J. Clin. Oncol. 33, 1008–1014 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Herbst, R. S. et al. J. Clin. Oncol. 22, 785–794 (2004).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Goel, N. & Reddy, S. S. Surg. Oncol. Clin. N. Am. 26, 767–790 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Golan, T. et al. N. Engl. J. Med. 381, 317–327 (2019).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Hegi, M. E. et al. N. Engl. J. Med. 352, 997–1003 (2005).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Pond, G. R. et al. J. Clin. Oncol. 36, 225–225 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Adashek, J. J., Salgia, M. & Pal, S. K. Urol. Case Rep. 19, 60–62 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Long, G. V. et al. Lancet Oncol. 20, 1083–1097 (2019).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Okamura, R. et al. JCO Precis. Oncol. https://doi.org/10.1200/PO.18.00183 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  14. Kato, S. et al. Nat. Commun. 11, 4965 (2020).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Adashek, J. J., Subbiah, V. & Kurzrock, R. Trends Cancer https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trecan.2020.08.009 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Palmer, A. C. & Sorger, P. K. Cell 171, 1678–1691.e1613 (2017).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

Funded in part by the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Fund, and by the National Cancer Institute grant P30 CA023100 (R.K.).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Internal Medicine, University of South Florida, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, Tampa, FL, USA

    Jacob J. Adashek

  2. Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

    Alexey Goloubev

  3. Center for Personalized Cancer Therapy and Division of Hematology and Oncology, Department of Medicine, University of California San Diego Moores Cancer Center, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Shumei Kato & Razelle Kurzrock

Authors
  1. Jacob J. Adashek
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Alexey Goloubev
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Shumei Kato
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Razelle Kurzrock
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Razelle Kurzrock.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

S.K. consults for Foundation Medicine, has received a speaker’s fee from Roche, and has research grants from ACT Genomics, Sysmex, Konica Minolta and OmniSeq. R.K. has research funding from Incyte, Genentech, Merck Serono, Pfizer, Sequenom, Foundation Medicine, Guardant Health, Grifols, Boehringer Ingelheim and Konica Minolta; has consultant and/or speaker fees from LOXO, X-Biotech, Actuate Therapeutics, Genentech, Pfizer, Roche and NeoMed; has an equity interest in IDbyDNA and Curematch; and is a board member of CureMatch and CureMetrix and co-founder of CureMatch.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Adashek, J.J., Goloubev, A., Kato, S. et al. Missing the target in cancer therapy. Nat Cancer 2, 369–371 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43018-021-00204-w

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43018-021-00204-w

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing: Cancer

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Cancer newsletter — what matters in cancer research, free to your inbox weekly.

Get what matters in cancer research, free to your inbox weekly. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Cancer