Beyond Precision Medicine: Why Personalized Care Delivery Matters in Oncology

Beyond Precision Medicine: Why Personalized Care Delivery Matters in Oncology

This guest editorial was developed by Cureety based on discussions with oncology leaders about the future of cancer care delivery. Among those perspectives are insights from Dr. Maryam Lustberg, Chief of Breast Medical Oncology at Yale Cancer Center, whose expertise in patient-centered oncology care and symptom management helped inform several of the themes explored in this article. Her comments are included to provide clinical context on emerging opportunities to advance precision care.

Precision oncology has transformed cancer treatment. Molecular diagnostics, targeted therapies, immunotherapies, and individualized treatment pathways have enabled clinicians to better match therapies to the unique biology of each patient.

Yet as cancer treatment becomes increasingly personalized, care delivery must continue to evolve as well. For patients, the cancer journey is shaped not only by the therapy they receive, but also by how symptoms are monitored, how side effects are managed, how concerns are addressed between visits, and how care adapts to their changing needs.

This broader approach is often described as precision care: care that is proactive, personalized, responsive, and centered on the individual patient throughout the treatment journey.

Precision Medicine Is Only Part of the Story

Precision medicine is often understood as delivering the right treatment to the right patient at the right time. That remains a critical goal in oncology. However, truly personalized cancer care extends beyond treatment selection.

Patients enter treatment with different comorbidities, support systems, financial realities, symptom tolerances, treatment goals, and personal preferences. These factors can influence how they experience therapy and what support they need along the way.

Many oncology leaders have emphasized that precision medicine should include more than selecting therapy. Dr. Maryam Lustberg, Chief of Breast Medical Oncology at Yale Cancer Center, has noted that personalized care must also encompass how patients are monitored and supported throughout treatment.

“The initial reaction tends to be centered on the right drug for the right patient at the right time,” she said. “But true precision medicine includes all the other things… how we monitor side effects, how we react to them.”

Precision care may include:

• How treatment is explained and understood
• How symptoms are monitored between visits
• How side effects are identified and addressed
• How care plans adapt to changing risk
• How patient priorities inform decision-making

As oncology continues to advance, the opportunity is not only to personalize treatment, but to personalize the care experience surrounding treatment.

Better Care Can Also Be Smarter Care

Healthcare organizations are increasingly focused on improving outcomes while also addressing workforce strain, rising costs, and operational complexity. These goals are sometimes viewed as competing priorities, but well-designed care delivery can support both quality and efficiency.

Earlier detection of complications may help prevent avoidable escalation. More targeted symptom monitoring may reduce unnecessary outreach while ensuring urgent concerns are addressed quickly. Streamlined workflows may help care teams focus their time where clinical judgment and human connection are most needed.

Clinical leaders have increasingly recognized that improving care and reducing low-value activity can be aligned when systems are designed thoughtfully. As Dr. Lustberg observed:

“As we improve care and cut out kind of useless, redundant care… ultimately, when it’s well designed, it should reduce costs eventually and improve care.”

Sustainable change often requires investment, patience, and a willingness to redesign care processes around the needs of both patients and clinicians.

Biomarkers Are Expanding What Is Possible

Biomarkers continue to expand the possibilities for personalized oncology care. In metastatic breast cancer, blood-based testing is already helping clinicians identify molecular changes that can influence treatment decisions, including the use of ESR1 mutation testing after progression on endocrine therapy.

Emerging research is also exploring whether molecular evidence of recurrence can be detected before clinical relapse is visible. This may be particularly important in hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, where recurrence can occur many years after initial diagnosis.

These advances point toward a future in which oncology teams may be able to identify risk earlier, intervene sooner, and continue personalizing care across the disease course.

The Need for Earlier Toxicity Detection

While biomarkers for treatment response are advancing, predicting treatment-related toxicity remains more challenging. Clinicians may not always have reliable tools to know which patients will develop neuropathy, fatigue, nausea, cognitive changes, or functional decline early enough to intervene proactively.

This matters because some toxicities are easier to prevent than to reverse.

Functional indicators such as gait, balance, activity patterns, and other patient-specific signals may help identify emerging risks before symptoms become severe. Over time, combining multiple types of data—including symptoms, function, behavior, and physiology—may help care teams detect deterioration earlier and tailor supportive care more precisely.

Why Symptom Monitoring Still Misses Too Much

In routine practice, many symptoms are still captured primarily during clinic visits or when patients contact their care team between appointments. This can create blind spots.

Some patients may not realize that a symptom is treatment-related. Others may normalize side effects, delay reporting symptoms, or worry that sharing concerns could lead to treatment interruption or dose reduction. Time-limited visits may also make it difficult to capture the full patient experience.

Even the way questions are asked can influence what patients disclose. Dr. Lustberg has highlighted a simple example: “You’re feeling okay, right?” A leading question like this may unintentionally discourage patients from sharing concerns.

More proactive symptom monitoring can help close these gaps by giving patients structured opportunities to report what they are experiencing in real time.

Making Patient-Reported Outcomes Actionable

Patient-reported outcomes are increasingly used in oncology, but collecting information is only the first step. To improve care, patient-reported data must be timely, clinically meaningful, and actionable.

A fixed questionnaire may miss the days when symptoms are most intense. Data collected before the next treatment cycle may not reflect what happened in the days immediately following therapy. In some cases, symptom information may be documented but not translated into a timely intervention.

A more responsive model would use patient-reported information as a clinical signal. For example:

• If nausea is worsening, the patient may need reassessment sooner.
• If a treatment has a known risk window, monitoring should align with that window.
• If symptoms are trending upward, escalation pathways should be clear.
• If supportive care is provided, the team should know whether it helped.

Reflecting on this opportunity, Dr. Lustberg described the value of being able to respond dynamically to patient needs: “That nimbleness of reacting to pattern changes… I think that would be the ideal state for me as a clinician.”

In this model, patient-reported information becomes more than documentation. It becomes part of an active care process that supports earlier intervention and more individualized support.

AI Must Earn Trust

Artificial intelligence is increasingly being explored across healthcare, including oncology. Potential applications include symptom monitoring, risk stratification, workflow support, and care coordination.

However, adoption will depend on trust. Clinicians need confidence that AI-supported tools are validated, reliable, transparent, and safe. Systems must be able to identify important red flags, minimize hallucination risk, and escalate urgent concerns appropriately.

AI may eventually help care teams prioritize patients, identify risk earlier, and reduce repetitive administrative work. But its role in oncology must be built on evidence, careful validation, and ongoing clinical oversight.

Technology Should Support More Human Care

Digital tools should not be viewed as replacements for clinicians. Instead, the goal should be to help care teams spend more time on the moments where human judgment, empathy, and expertise matter most.

Oncology teams are facing workforce shortages while patient needs continue to grow. Thoughtfully implemented technology can help reduce repetitive work and support more efficient monitoring, allowing clinicians to focus on:

• Complex treatment decisions
• Emotional distress and uncertainty
• Management of significant symptoms
• Family and social challenges
• Individualized clinical guidance

The best use of technology is not to make care less human. It is to create more space for human-centered care.

Innovation Must Also Improve Access

As oncology innovation accelerates, it is important to ensure that new tools do not widen existing disparities. Patients in underserved or lower-resource communities should also benefit from advances in monitoring, care coordination, and access to specialized support.

Digital health tools and remote monitoring may help extend elements of high-quality oncology care beyond major academic centers. When designed intentionally, these approaches can help improve consistency, access, and responsiveness for more patients.

Equity should be a central consideration in how precision care models are designed, implemented, and evaluated.

The Next Evolution in Oncology Care

Breakthrough therapies will continue to shape the future of cancer treatment. At the same time, many future gains in outcomes, patient experience, workforce sustainability, and healthcare value may come from improving how care is delivered around those therapies.

The next evolution in oncology will require:

• Earlier detection of emerging problems
• More personalized supportive care
• Better use of patient-reported information
• Clearer escalation pathways
• Reduced burden on care teams
• More time for meaningful clinician-patient connection

Precision medicine has transformed how cancer treatment is selected. Precision care has the potential to transform how patients are supported throughout treatment.

The future of oncology is not only about discovering better therapies. It is also about designing better systems around the people receiving and delivering care.

About Cureety
Cureety is an oncology-specialized remote monitoring and digital workflow solution that partners with care teams to extend their clinical and human reach beyond clinic walls. Cureety’s helps to turn patient-reported signals into actionable clinical insights throughout the cancer care journey. Its platform supports remote symptom and adverse event management, care coordination, treatment readiness, and patient empowerment to help oncology teams deliver proactive, precision care.

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