Precision medicine is an emerging approach to disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person.
Precision medicine is an emerging approach to disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person.
The idea is precision medicine allows clinicians to provide the right treatment at the right time and deliver healthcare more accurately and efficiently, which leads to better quality of care.
“Precision medicine has the potential to transform medicine by tailoring treatments to individuals,” Victor J. Dzau, MD, president of the National Academy of Medicine in Washington, DC, and Geoffrey S. Ginsburg, MD, PhD, of the Duke University Center for Applied Genomics & Precision Medicine in Durham, NC, wrote in a JAMA Viewpoint article.
However, significant challenges exist before precision medicine can be broadly implemented in healthcare, among them insufficient evidence generation, data sharing, and infrastructure challenges, slow uptake of genomic information into clinical care and research, the economics of precision medicine, and achieving greater patient and clinician engagement and trust in precision medicine.
To realize the promise of precision medicine, the authors suggested what they term 5 Vital Directions that require priority consideration:
Effective implementation of each of these Vital Directions will require stronger individual and community engagement, the authors advised, along with smooth coordination and collaboration among stakeholders from the public, private, academic, and government sectors. They noted that trust is an essential element for discovery in precision medicine to be accelerated and adopted.
President Obama announced a Precision Medicine Initiative in his 2015 State of the Union address. The initiative was launched with a $215 million investment in the president’s 2106 budget.
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