We help physicians and patients in planning their therapy strategy!

Our Cancer Diagnostics

Individualized Cancer Therapy Using Our Diagnostic Services

Personalized Cancer Therapy - An Overview

Our company wants to enable cancer patients a longer survival and a better quality of life. For this purpose we concentrate on development and offering diagnostic services for personalized cancer treatment. These diagnostic services should help to adjust the treatment for a patient individually to make the therapy more successful.

So we follow the general medical principle below.


"The gods placed diagnosis before therapy."*

*Frequently quoted saying putatively from Prof. Franz Volhard (former director of the university hospital in Frankfurt a.M., Germany); source: Hessisches Ärzteblatt 7/2006, p. 499.

Based on this principle the physician tries to find the cause of a disease (diagnosis). On basis of this diagnosis the physician can initiate a proper treatment (therapy). For this a classical therapy according to guidelines or a personalized therapy according to guidelines with additional usage of biomarkers are available. For the analysis of biomarkers different efficacy tests for cancer drugs are available. By using these efficacy tests inefficient therapies should be avoided. The selection of the therapy determines if there is a relief or even a cure of the disease. Thereby a personalized therapy could show a better therapy success, because it is adjusted to the specific conditions of a tumor of a single cancer patient.


Figure of diagnosis before therapy in cancer


Specifically for the improved selection of drugs for cancer treatment TherapySelect offers for patients and physicians different diagnostic services.

This concept is also picked up by the new terms “personalized medicine”, “personalized oncology” and "precision medicine".

Find the Right Cancer Diagnostic

The table below is a selection guide to find the right diagnostic tool for the relevant cancer.

A more detailed selection guide can be found under Which Test for Whom?.


Diagnostic Selection Guide in Oncology

Explanations to the table:

  • Symbols:
    • A green check indicates that the diagnostic can be used.
    • A red cross indicates that the diagnostic cannot be used.
    • Brackets around the green checks indicate that the test cannot be used without restriction.
      • At an early tumor stage the efficacy tests are only useful if a drug therapy is reasonable.
      • For the efficacy prediction the testable drugs are limited.
  • Patient Sample:
    • A solid tumor is a tumor that arises in body tissue. For example breast, colon, ovary, lung or prostate cancer (to name a few).
    • Living tumor is either solid tumor tissue or malignant effusion, which is sent to TherapySelect directly after removal from the patient (via surgery, biopsy or puncture) and is being processed in a way that living tumor cells can be used for the test.
    • Tumor material FFPE (Formalin Fixed, Paraffin Embedded) is removed tumor tissue that is fixed in formalin and embedded in paraffin. Here no living tumor cells are present. It is also called archived tumor material. This is normally stored in pathology.
  • Efficacy Prediction:
    • The targeted therapies do also include anti-hormone drugs.
    • The efficacy prediction can also include the prediction of resistance.
    • For targeted therapies and immunotherapies the CTR-Test® is not yet validated.

Counseling Service for Cancer Therapy

Photo of Dr. Frank Kischkel


Dr. Frank Kischkel

Counselling service how we can help.


Mo - Th: 9:00 - 16:00
Fr:          9:00 - 15:00

Get in contact with us

Tel: +49 - 6221 - 8936 - 157 (Office)
Fax: +49 - 6221 - 8936 - 158
Email:  contact [at] therapyselect [dot] de


If you want to learn more about Dr. Kischkel, visit his CV under CV (Dr. Kischkel).

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Important Information About Our Diagnostics

  • Healing in cancer is difficult and demanding, depends on the therapies which exist, and might not be possible depending on the individual patient situation.
  • Diagnostic services can never be better than the therapeutic options that are evaluated. But finding potential effective treatment options for an individual patient can make cancer care more successful.
  • Our services are meant to support the existing cancer care. They are mostly used when no clear treatment regimen can be recommended. This is the situation for the following cases:
    • Several chemotherapeutic agents are equally suitable for treating a certain type of cancer (according to guidelines).
    • Recurrent tumors, when there are no guidelines available.
    • Origin of the tumor is unknown.
    • Rare tumor types, for which no guidelines exist.
  • Diagnostic services can never be better than the therapeutic options that are evaluated. But finding potential effective treatment options for an individual patient can make cancer care more successful.
  • Our services are meant to support the existing cancer care. They are mostly used when no clear treatment regimen can be recommended. This is the situation for the following cases:
    • Several chemotherapeutic agents are equally suitable for treating a certain type of cancer (according to guidelines).
    • Recurrent tumors, when there are no guidelines available.
    • Origin of the tumor is unknown.
    • Rare tumor types, for which no guidelines exist.