Advancing precision and personalized breast cancer treatment through multi-omics technologies.

Abstract

Breast cancer is the most common malignant tumour in women, with more than 685,000 women dying of breast cancer each year. The heterogeneity of breast cancer complicates both treatment and diagnosis. Traditional methods based on histopathology and hormone receptor status are now no longer sufficient. Recently, advances in multi-omics techniques, including genomic, proteomic, and transcriptomic analyses, have deepened our understanding of breast cancer. Combining these approaches allows for precise molecular subtyping, which is essential for the detection of key mutations, protein interactions and gene expression patterns that are highly relevant to different therapeutic strategies. Genomic analyses have been effectively identifying key mutations in cancer. Meanwhile, proteomics and transcriptomics complement by identifying new therapeutic targets and elucidating gene expression dynamics. Integrating multi-omics and conventional diagnostics improves tumour characterisation and enables prognostic accuracy comparable to established standards and treatment response. Existing and emerging technologies enable real-time enhanced tumour follow-up and data analysis through liquid biopsy and artificial intelligence, respectively. Despite these clinical implementation challenges, multi-omics including clinical phenotyping offers significant potential for precision breast cancer treatment. This article describes recent advances in molecular subtyping and multi-omics technologies that are driving key innovations to optimise patient outcomes and further develop personalised medicine in the context of breast cancer care.