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"Personalized medicine will change the way patients are treated in the future."

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Pharmacogenomics

Pharmacogenomics is the study of how peoples' genes can influence their response to a certain drug or treatment. This field of study is a huge part of personalized medicine because genes can determine the type of drug or dosage needed for a specific patient. Researchers study the correlation between a patient's gene variation and response. Hopefully, every patient will be given the medication that best fits their needs, and adverse side effects will be avoided in the near future.

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Where is this new technology currently helping most?

 

At this time, personalized medicine is making the most impact on cancer patients and medications. The statistics below are the percent of tumors that contain genetic mutations that could potentially be targeted by personalized medicine.

 

  • Melanoma- 73 percent 

  • Thyroid- 56 percent

  • Colorectal- 51 percent 

  • Lung and pancreatic- 41 percent

  • Breast- 32 percent 

 

Personalized medicine is the key to defeating devastating diseases such as cancer because of its ablility to target gene specific mutations and tumors.

Cancer Treatment

Scientists have made the greatest strides in the realm of personalized medicine through the development of new cancer treatments. In 2011, The Wall Street Journal reported that a large percentage of various tumors have genetic mutations that can be targeted by drugs. 

 

Geoffrey Ginsburg, a director at the Center for Personalized Medicine at Duke University, describes cancers as the "poster child" for a disease that can utilize and benefit from personalized medicine. He explains that he has already used these individualized medicines in order to help with diagnosis, prognosis, screening, and even risk assessment, all depending on the biology and genetic makeup of the tumor.

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HIV

HIV/AIDS is another area where the principles of personalized medicine have made great progress. Edward Abrahams, the president of the Personalized Medicine Coalition, says that "the [HIV] virus mutates differently in each patient. Now we can understand the viral load and analyze it, then prescribe the right cocktail of medicine to treat it. This is the progress we've seen taking AIDS from a death sentence to a chronic condition. But that's understanding the virus, not the person." 

 

Additionally, genetic testing has significantly reduced the number of patients that suffer from serious side effects from various HIV medicines. For example, Abacavir, which is very effective and often used along with other antiretrovirals to treat HIV infection, causes up to eight percent of patients to experience adverse side effects like rashes, fatigue, and diarrhea. The reason for this is a gene variant called HLA-B*5701, which causes a "hypersensitivity" reaction to the drug. Now, patients are screened for this gene variant before being given the drug, which has dramatically reduced the number of side effects and made it more cost-effective.

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