Patients and their diseases are profiled in order to identify the most effective treatment for their specific case.<unk>  or molecularly<unk>  is one of the major modalities of medical treatment (pharmacotherapy) for cancer, others being hormonal<unk>  and cytotoxic chemotherapy. As a form of molecular medicine,<unk>  blocks the growth of cancer cells by interfering with specific<unk>  molecules needed for carcinogenesis and tumor growth, rather than by simply interfering with all rapidly dividing cells (e.g. with traditional chemotherapy). Because most agents for<unk>  are biopharmaceuticals, the term biologic<unk>  is sometimes synonymous with<unk>  when used in the context of cancer<unk>  (and thus distinguished from chemotherapy, that is, cytotoxic<unk> . However, the modalities can be combined; antibody-drug conjugates combine biologic and cytotoxic mechanisms into one<unk> . Another form of<unk>  involves the use of nanoengineered enzymes to bind to a tumor cell such that the body's natural cell degradation process can digest the cell, effectively eliminating it from the body.<unk>  cancer<unk> es are expected to be more effective than older forms of treatments and less harmful to normal cells. Many<unk> es are examples of immunotherapy (using immune mechanisms for<unk> utic goals) developed by the field of cancer immunology. Thus, as immunomodulators, they are one type of biological response modifiers. The most successful<unk> es are chemical entities that target or preferentially target a protein or enzyme that carries a mutation or other genetic alteration that is specific to cancer cells and not found in normal host tissue. One of the most successful molecular<unk> utics is Imatinib, also known as Gleevec, which is a kinase inhibitor with exceptional affinity for the oncofusion protein BCR-Abl which is a strong driver of tumorigenesis in chronic myelogenous leukemia. Although employed in other indications, Gleevec is most effective targeting BCR-Abl. Other examples of molecular<unk> utics targeting mutated oncogenes, include PLX27892 which targets mutant B-raf in melanoma. There are<unk> es for lung cancer, colorectal cancer, head and neck cancer, breast cancer, multiple myeloma, lymphoma, prostate cancer, melanoma and other cancers. Biomarkers are usually required to aid the selection of patients who will likely respond to a given<unk> . Co-targeted<unk>  involves the use of one or more<unk> utics aimed at multiple targets, for example PI3K and MEK, in an attempt to generate a synergistic response and prevent the development of drug resistance. The definitive experiments that showed that<unk>  would reverse the malignant phenotype of tumor cells involved treating Her2/neu transformed cells with monoclonal antibodies in vitro and in vivo by Mark Greene's laboratory and reported from 1985. Some have challenged the use of the term, stating that drugs usually associated with the term are insufficiently selective. The phrase occasionally appears in scare quotes:<unk> ".<unk> es may also be described as "chemotherapy" or "non-cytotoxic chemotherapy", as "chemotherapy" strictly means only "treatment by chemicals". But in typical medical and general usage "chemotherapy" is now mostly used specifically for "traditional" cytotoxic chemotherapy.
Targeted therapy
Multisystemic therapy
Differentiation therapy
Combination therapy
Chemoradiotherapy
Chemoimmunotherapy
Radionuclide therapy
Collagen induction therapy