Thank you for visiting nature. 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. Molecular Tumour Boards MTBs were created with the purpose of supporting clinical decision-making within precision medicine.
Though in use globally, reporting on these meetings often focuses on the small percentages of patients that receive treatment via this process and are less likely to report on, and assess, patients who do not receive treatment. A literature review was performed to understand patient attrition within MTBs and barriers to patients receiving treatment. A total of 51 papers were reviewed spanning a 6-year period from 11 different countries.
As patient attrition in MTBs is an issue which is very rarely alluded to in reporting, more transparent reporting is needed to understand barriers to treatment and integration of new technologies is required to process increasing omic and treatment data. The human genome project provided the world with a fully referenced genome that helped to illuminate the role of somatic and germline mutations in the pathogenesis of cancer [ 1 ].
The development of next-generation sequencing NGS propelled genomics research even further, enabling the sequencing of entire genomes within days rather than decades.
This helped facilitate the use of genomics sequencing within clinically meaningful timelines and identify aberrant pathways for the development of new and effective targeted treatment options for patients [ 2 ], facilitating rapid precision medicine on a larger scale [ 3 ]. Precision medicine is a healthcare model that allows treatment to be tailored to individuals by categorising them into genomic subpopulations [ 4 ].
