Personalized Medicine: A New Trend in Treatment
Genetic testing and personalized medicine are rapidly evolving and becoming the future of medical treatment. Genetic testing not only helps identify an individual’s risk for developing a certain disease or condition, but it also provides information on how best to treat a condition. In addition to cancer, personalized medicine is driving the development of new treatments for complex diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, hepatitis C and Alzheimer’s disease which are thought to be caused by a combination of genetic and other factors.
While we are still learning about the benefits, personalized medicine allows doctors to prescribe targeted treatment or drugs based on your specific genetic makeup. This has been shown to provide better health outcomes, save the patient from many unnecessary and unpleasant side effects and avoid additional costs.
Many unique tumor biomarkers are being studied through clinical trials determining whether a patient’s tumor has the characteristics to respond to a specific treatment.
