DNA damage assessment and potential applications in laboratory diagnostics and precision medicine

Precision or personalized medicine is an aspiring but controversially discussed new paradigm in modern medicine. The individual variability of patients and their diverse responses to treatment options casts doubt on “one-fits-all” therapeutic strategies. Thus, biomarker-based stratification of patients into smaller cohorts is recommended. Indeed, the enormous progress in “omics” technologies has greatly supported this medical model which focused on determining disease predisposition, delivering early and targeted prevention, and/or tailoring the right therapy for each patient at the right time. Especially in the field of precision cancer therapy, the growing understanding of tumor heterogeneity and individual treatment responses has enabled the identification of adequate biomarkers. This review focuses on biomarkers for genotoxicity assessment by different methods, their characteristics, technical advances and their potential clinical applications.