Uses of Personalized Medicine in Current Pediatrics

Abstract

The development of personalized medicine (PM) has shifted medicine from one size fits all principle to tailoring treatment to patients characteristics to get the intended benefits in a faster time with the least possible harm. In the early days whenever a patient is diagnosed with a certain disease, a known first-line medicine will be prescribed. If this first line fails, then we would follow the algorithm and use the next one. In the last century with the wide use of researches and massive volume of publications, the concept of evidence-based medicine has made a huge change in modern medicine. It is expected that the new millennium will be the PM era. PM in its simplest understanding is providing a tailored medication according to the patients need. After using appropriate tool to identify the patients genetic characteristics, a specific treatment with minimal side effects and higher rate of response would be prescribed. The first uses of this concept emerge from adult practice and the use of a specific treatment for patients with specific enzyme defects in cystic fibrosis, as we will discuss in details below. Oncology is the area that currently uses PM more than any other medical speciality. The aim of this article was to describe what the PM is about and what could be its expected benefits. We have reviewed the literature and obtained the most relevant articles. We will then mention some examples of applying PM in current pediatrics.




Int J Clin Pediatr. 2016;5(1):1-5
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.14740/ijcp241w