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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A new test that looks at genetic material from a patient's tumor is 80 percent accurate in predicting which drugs would be most effective against that particular cancer, U.S. researchers reported Sunday.

The test can be used to predict not only whether a single drug can work to stop a tumor but whether a specific combination of drugs will work, the team at Duke University in North Carolina reported.

Writing in the journal Nature Medicine, the researchers said they used a "gene chip" made by Affymetrix as the basis of the test, done in lab dishes using tumor samples from several hundred different patients with leukemia and ovarian, breast and lung cancers.

Interesting way to choose the most effective treatments for your tumors. How much study for other illnesses before a similar approach will work for them?

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