Lessons for Precision Medicine from Lung Cancer

Precision medicine targets prevention and treatments based on phenotypic, biochemical, genetic, and psychosocial characteristics that determine individual variability. Personalized treatment has been a long-standing paradigm for lung cancer. Advances in our understanding of lung cancer biology over the past two decades have dramatically changed our approaches to evaluation and management. This chapter highlights three “lessons” that inform an increasingly precise approach to lung cancer and are applicable to other diseases. The lessons discuss how advances in disease understanding facilitate individualized treatment tools, use of these tools in personalized assessments, and the importance of a holistic approach to the individual patient.