Treatment and prevention tailored to the individual.
Precision medicine is “an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person.”
According to the Precision Medicine Initiative, this approach allows doctors and researchers to predict more accurately which treatment and prevention strategies for a particular disease will work in which groups of people. It contrasts with a one-size-fits-all approach, in which strategies are developed for the average person, with less consideration for the differences between individuals.
Although the term “precision medicine” is relatively new, the concept has been part of healthcare for many years. For example, a person who needs a blood transfusion is not given blood from a randomly selected donor; instead, the donor’s blood type is matched to the recipient to reduce the risk of complications. While examples can be found across medicine, the role of precision medicine in day-to-day healthcare is still relatively limited — and researchers hope this approach will expand to many areas of health and healthcare in the coming years.
The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) describes precision medicine — generally considered analogous to personalized or individualized medicine — as an innovative approach that uses information about an individual’s genomic, environmental, and lifestyle information to guide decisions related to their medical management. The goal is a more precise approach to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease.
Precision medicine is central to how we think about developing therapies: pairing the best science with an understanding of each patient’s biology, environment, and circumstances.