Search

Our genomic understanding of cancer evolves quickly, driven by technological advances. Insights are added every day, but their interpretations are based on fundamental hypotheses on heredity and cell biology formulated more than 100 years ago. Genomic medicine is already in some use, but data from extremely large experiments of 100,000s of patients, controls, and tumours will alter the whole management of cancer; from early detection programmes before diagnosis, to efficient diagnostics, targeted treatment, response surveillance and monitoring of relapse.

10,408 individuals from the general Danish population who had CRP measured at baseline were followed for up to 16 years; 1,624 developed cancer and among these, 998 died during follow-up. Multifactorially adjusted hazard ratios for the highest versus the lowest quintile of CRP were 1.3 (95% confidence interval, 1.0-1.6) for cancer of any type, 2.1 (1.2-3.8) for lung cancer, 1.7 (0.8-3.2) for colorectal cancer, and 0.9 (0.5-1.7) for breast cancer. Multifactorially adjusted hazard ratios for early death in patients with cancer were 1.8 (1.2-2.7) for CRP > 3 versus < 1 mg/L.