Precision Medicine and Pharmacogenomics
Premier Heart and Vein Care has recently added Precision Medicine to the practice. Dr Stevens initially became interested in this area as an undergraduate at Colgate University, with a major in cellular and molecular biology.
According to the Precision Medicine Initiative, 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." This approach will allow doctors and researchers to predict more accurately which treatment and prevention strategies for a particular disease will work in which groups of people. It is in contrast to a one-size-fits-all approach, in which disease treatment and prevention strategies are developed for the average person, with less consideration for the differences between individuals.
Beyond Treating Disease, Precision Medicine Includes Approaches to Diagnostics, Prevention, and Screening:
- Methods for identifying those who are at risk before disease strikes;
- Analytical tools for predicting which prevention strategies will work best for which patients;
- Screening methods that can identify early signs of disease before symptoms emerge;
- Diagnostic methods for identifying subtypes of disease that may look the same on the surface but respond very differently to treatment;
- Tests that can identify disease carrier status for prospective parents;
- Devices for managing diseases and for tracking and guiding recovery;
- Pharmacogenomics, a component of precision medicine, aims to predict how individual genetic variability impacts drug absorption, metabolism and activity.
