What is Precision Medicine and What are the Benefits?

What Is Precision Medicine?

Precision medicine uses information about your environment, lifestyle, genes, and other biomarkers to help guide medical care.

Instead of the “one-size-fits-all” approach used in traditional healthcare, which is developed for the average person, precision medicine — also called personalized medicine — factors in genetic differences. This allows scientists and healthcare providers to more accurately predict which prevention strategies and treatments could improve an individual’s outcomes. 

When it comes to precision medicine vs personalized medicine, the terms are largely used interchangeably. Precision medicine is the more recent term, which emphasizes the streamlined, targeted nature of the approach.

How Does Precision Medicine Help Individuals?

By harnessing the power of genetic insights, millions of people around the world have already experienced the advantages of personalized medicine. [1] This innovative approach is impacting how medications are being developed and how diseases – like cancer – are being treated, with the long-term goal of fully integrating the practice into routine medical care to improve healthcare systems on a universal scale.  

Precision medicine applications are constantly evolving, though some are more established than others — such as within these four key areas: 

Precision oncology is transforming the classification process of cancer. Researchers are now able to identify types and subtypes by the genetics of the cancer cells themselves, dividing once-broad categories into precise conditions with specific treatments. 

Cancer has typically been classified by the body part or tissue type in which it arose (for example, breast and lung cancer). Now, precision oncology is allowing healthcare providers to choose treatments based on the DNA signature of a person's tumor, rather than the general location in the body. 

Cancer immunotherapy is another evolving area that precision medicine has impacted. Several drugs have been developed that use one’s own immune system to manage — and in some cases, even cure — cancer, including anti-cancer antibodies, supercharged immune cells, and treatment vaccines that train your immune system to attack tumours. 

A third example of precision medicine being practiced currently is pharmacogenetics. Pharmacogenetics is the study of how genes affect your response to medications, resulting in more effective treatment, and reducing the risk of adverse drug events and side effects. With the end goal of incorporating pharmacogenetics into healthcare systems worldwide, this area of precision medicine has the potential to radically improve medication safety and treatment outcomes.

Rare diseases are another area that precision medicine benefits. In Canada, one out of twelve people has a rare disease — many of whom are children. [2] There are thousands of different rare diseases, and only a small percentage have treatment options. 

Through extensive research efforts into these genetic conditions, advances in diagnosing rare diseases have been made, with the ultimate goal of speeding up development for effective treatments. 

Early Detection and Identifying Risks Before Symptoms Appear

One of the most compelling precision medicine benefits is its ability to shift healthcare practices from reactive to preventative. By analyzing a person's genes, important molecular markers are discovered. These markers can signal the risk or presence of diseases before symptoms have begun to appear, allowing for proactive care and early intervention as opposed to advanced-stage treatment. This is particularly important for conditions in which early treatment can be life-saving. 

Take the genetic variants BRCA1 or BRCA2: women with these variants have up to an 85% chance of developing breast cancer in their lifetime, and up to a 60% chance of developing ovarian cancer. [3] 

By identifying this genetic information early on, women can incorporate preventative measures into their life, including more frequent mammograms and check-ins with their healthcare provider. 

Personalized Treatment Plans

Understanding genetic responses to medications can reduce the risk of side effects by 30%. [4] By tailoring treatment to one’s DNA profile, there’s a much higher chance of staying the course of treatment, alleviating symptoms, and feeling better overall without additional drug-related discomforts.

Precision medicine is also leading to new discoveries about the impact of environment on the way genes function — including factors like psychological stress in both adults and children, as well as living conditions. This is a newer avenue of study within genetics, but environmental factors may change the ways genes work without changing a person's DNA sequence — an area known as epigenetics. [5]

Preventing Adverse Drug Reactions Through Genetic Insights

People can have genetic variants that cause them to metabolize medication at different rates. Certain gene variants may result in a person being considered a fast (or rapid/ultrarapid) metabolizer for that gene, meaning certain medications are broken down rapidly and the person may not respond to it. Slower (or intermediate/poor)  metabolizers, on the other hand, may not clear the medication at a sufficient rate, which causes build-up, side effects, or even toxicity. 

Knowing this information at the outset is key to helping to improve medication response. Take, for example, the drug warfarin, which is used to prevent blood clots. This medication has traditionally been adjusted through multiple rounds of trial-and-error, which can result in excessive bleeding or further blood clots in people with certain genetic variations. Thanks to precision medicine, using genetic testing before warfarin treatment helps determine safer dosages and decreased ADR risk. [6]

Reduced-risk mental health treatment is another example of real-world precision medicine benefits. Like cardiovascular drugs, medications for mental health conditions, such as antidepressants, can involve a significant trial-and-error period, as well as the risk of side effects. With pharmacogenomic (PGx) testing, the likelihood of remission for depression treatment can increase by 85%. [7]

It’s now known that women are twice as likely to experience adverse drug reactions than men. [8] PGx testing can spotlight potential risks associated with certain treatments and provide women with a more comprehensive understanding of their unique health needs. 

Long-Term Health Benefits and Better Outcomes

The application of precision medicine is ever-evolving, and has already proven its remarkable value to many areas, including chronic disease management and cancer care. More and more healthcare providers are advocating for the use of precision medicine to reduce the trial-and-error process of treatment, from medication prescriptions to disease diagnosis.