Precision medicine is an initiative taken by doctors for the treatment of particular diseases based on the patient’s genetic variability, environment and his/her lifestyle. Precision medicine will help the doctors to treat different groups of people based on genetic understanding. Due to advancements in healthcare and the availability of health data of every single patient that is present since a long time, the doctors are provided with an opportunity to make patient care more personalized and precise.
This is not the first time such way is used to in patient care, when a patient needs a blood transfusion’ he/she is given the blood of the donor whose blood type matches the patient’s. Precision medicine is mainly used for heart diseases or in the cases of cancers. The role of precision medicine in daily healthcare is vaguely limited. Researchers hope that this approach will expand to many areas of healthcare in coming years.
To be eligible for a precision medicine clinical trial, a person’s disease should have a genetic change in it for the treatment to be tested. Treatments using precision medicine as often expensive and in the precision medicine trial is costing of the genetic testing is covered by the organisation conducting the trial. The terms ‘personalized medicine’ and ‘precision medicine’ are used interchangeably by various people. But there is a big difference between these two approaches as personalized medicine develops a treatment specifically for an individual whereas in precision medicine more focus is given on the different types of approaches that will be more effective depending upon the genetic factors and lifestyle of the patient.
Segments of precision health:
- Family health history can help you know which diseases you are more likely to get.
- Personal devices can keep track of your health information.
- Genome sequencing can help find, track and control infectious disease outbreaks.
- Newborn screening can find medical conditions early to prevent complications.
- Medical options can prevent disease in people with inherited conditions.
- Social media can help public health workers track disease and communicate health information
According to many researchers, Precision medicine will definitely be used for improving many aspects of health and healthcare. Some of these are tested, manifested and will be evident soon.
