MUTATIONS AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE IN CANCER RESEARCH: A REVIEW

Abstract

Cancer is a genetic disease associated with the diverse molecular alterations resulting in several obstacles in diagnosis. Such mutations may result in improper therapy and lead to several types of resistance. Recent advances have helped in identifying existing biomarkers as well as novel ones. These biomarkers could be a number of biochemical entities including nucleic acids, proteins, sugars, lipids and small metabolites, cytogenetic and cytokinetic parameters and even tumour cells present in the biological fluid. Biomarkers have many potential applications in oncology, including risk assessment, screening, differential diagnosis, determination of prognosis, prediction of response to treatment and monitoring of progression of disease. The identification of biomarkers will help in the development of better therapeutic alternatives in turn providing benefit to the patients. In this perspective, we have identified a handful of such mutations with respect to the clinical aspects and which may help in identifying a possible role in cancer and targeting approaches in prospective research.