How can knowing the mutations that cause a patient’s cancer shape treatment?

Question: How can knowing the mutations that cause a patient's cancer shape treatment?
- Keywords:
  cancer,
  mutation,
  treatment
Asked by Nikita Bradshaw to Sinead on 12 Nov 2016.
- Sinead Loughran answered on 12 Nov 2016:
  
  Great question Nikita.
  
  The answer is yes. When we know the mutations that cause a particular cancer, it is possible to use a specific therapy to target the changes that occur in the cancer cell as a result of the mutation. It can be useful to think of a mutation as a malfunctioning traffic light; it causes tonnes of traffic to go down the wrong road causing chaos. The specific therapy can pinpoint the exact junction, shut down the traffic lights and block the route.
  
  For example, in a type of lung cancer called ‘non-small cell lung cancer’, if a certain mutation called EGFR is found, then the patient can be treated with a specific therapy which shuts down the crazy signal that caused the cancer to develop.
  
  Hope that helps.

Question: How can knowing the mutations that cause a patient's cancer shape treatment?