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War and peace? The oncologic and the palliative care perspective on personalized cancer treatment in a patient with advanced cancer

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Summary

Personalized cancer treatment utilizing targeted therapies in a tailored approach is based on tumor and/or patient-specific molecular profiles. Recent clinical trials continue to look for new potential targets in heavily pretreated patients or rare disease entities. Careful selection of patients who may derive benefit from such therapies constitutes a challenge. This case report presents an experimental personalized cancer treatment in an advanced cancer patient and provides a list of issues for discussion: How can we combine treatment goals and simultaneously meet the individual needs in advanced cancer reconciling both perspectives: oncology and palliative care?

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that there are no actual or potential conflicts of interest in relation to this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Clinical Division of Palliative Care, Department of Internal Medicine I, Medical University of Vienna, Waehringer Guertel 18–20, 1090, Vienna, Austria

    Eva K. Masel MD, Sophie Schur & Herbert H. Watzke

  2. Clinical Division of Oncology, Department of Internal Medicine I, Medical University of Vienna, Waehringer Guertel 18–20, 1090, Vienna, Austria

    Doris Posch & Manuela Schmidinger

  3. Department of Internal Medicine, Haematology and Oncology, Hospital Barmherzige Brueder, Johannes von Gott-Platz 1, 1020, Vienna, Austria

    Johannes G. Meran

  4. Palliative Care Consult Team, Hospital Horn-Allentsteig, Spitalgasse 10, 3580, Horn, Austria

    Dietmar Weixler

Authors
  1. Eva K. Masel MD
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  2. Sophie Schur
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  3. Doris Posch
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  4. Dietmar Weixler
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  5. Johannes G. Meran
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  6. Manuela Schmidinger
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  7. Herbert H. Watzke
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eva K. Masel MD.

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Masel, E., Schur, S., Posch, D. et al. War and peace? The oncologic and the palliative care perspective on personalized cancer treatment in a patient with advanced cancer. Wien Klin Wochenschr 127, 635–638 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00508-015-0803-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00508-015-0803-x

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