Cancer diagnosis, treatment selection and treatment

Abstract

The present invention provides assays, methods and systems for selecting an effective therapy for a subset of cancer patients having cancer cells with increased expression of BML and FANCI genes and/or having copy number increase in chromosome location 15q26 in the cancer cells and for treatment of such patients with the effective therapy of cancer patients based on the personalized cancer cell expression profile.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method for treating cancer in a human subject in need thereof comprising the step of administering an anthracycline-comprising cancer therapy to the human subject when the cancer in the human subject has been determined to have increased expression of BLM and FANCI compared to a reference value. 
     
     
         2 . A method of treating cancer in a human subject, comprising administering an anthracycline-comprising cancer therapy to a human subject when a cancer cell taken from the human subject has been or is determined to carry a chromosome 15q26 copy number gain compared to a reference value. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , further comprising the steps of detecting a chromosome 15q26 copy number in a sample comprising a cancer cell taken from the subject; comparing the chromosome 15q26 copy number to a reference value. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the cancer is selected from breast cancer, ovarian cancer and lung cancer. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the subject's cancer is known to not express a detectable quantity of ER, PgR, and HER2 receptor.