IMPPC Fundación Institut de Medicina Predictiva i Personalitzada del Càncer

1.    What is Predictive and Personalized Medicine?

The aim of Predictive Medicine is to predict the development of a disease and forecast the response to treatment based on information about the genome of an individual. Personalized Medicine in turn, aims to take advantage of this knowledge to design tailored therapies based on the genetic characteristics of each individual.

In the widest terms, Predictive Medicine represents a new paradigm in the treatment of disease; it will permit the health providers to test healthy individuals and assign a probability of their developing particular illnesses in the future. The knowledge of this probability will allow for lifestyle choices to be made and even, for many illnesses, preventive measures to be taken to stop the development of the disease.

Personalized medicine refers to a method of healthcare in which an individual is tested and depending on the results is given one or another type of treatment. The dosage and length of treatment is also calculated specifically for that individual. This is very far from most treatments at the moment, which follow a "one size fits all" model where everybody receives the same treatment. As a consequence, for many illnesses, some respond well and others do not improve.

Predictive and Personalized Medicine is particularly appropriate for the treatment of cancer because cancer is a genetic disease (sometimes hereditary) which is caused by molecular changes which lead to a chain of events ending with cellular changes and the appearance of symptoms. For some cancerous processes it is already possible to make predictions about the probability of developing the disease in the future. In some cancers a test of the genetic make-up of the individual helps physicians decide on which treatment to apply. These are the first steps on the path towards truly Predictive and Personalized Medicine for the treatment of cancer.

The Human Genome Project has provided the basic map to the genes of an individual; however it is a map that cannot be read in many places and it is not known what the consequences of having a particular genotype will be for the majority of diseases. A great deal of research is now being carried out to correctly interpret this genetic information. As a consequence there has been an acceleration of technological advances that should make it possible to efficiently and quickly identify the genotype of each individual in the near future.