Cancer 2015: a longitudinal whole-of-system study of genomic cancer medicine

• Cancer is a genetic disease, and genomic advances promise to revolutionise medicine.
• The impact on the health system is likely massive, and potentially costly, particularly in publicly funded health systems.
• The dominant focus to date is on use of genomic tools to more accurately select patients for molecular therapeutics.
• Cancer 2015 is a longitudinal cohort designed to assay the impact of genomic screening on personal and social outcomes for a broad range of cancers in the Australian community.

Genomic cancer medicine promises revolutionary change in oncology. The impacts of ‘personalized medicine’, based upon a molecular classification of cancer and linked to targeted therapies, will extend from individual patient outcomes to the health economy at large. To address the ‘whole-of-system’ impact of genomic cancer medicine, we have established a prospective cohort of patients with newly diagnosed cancer in the state of Victoria, Australia, about whom we have collected a broad range of clinical, demographic, molecular, and patient-reported data, as well as data on health resource utilization. Our goal is to create a model for investigating public investment in genomic medicine that maximizes the cost:benefit ratio for the Australian community at large.