Why personalized medicine?

Aside from the obvious, "because we are all different" there are other reasons for personalized medicine.  We often rely on the results of population studies to predict outcome.  I have blogged about such: "if this many high risk women take this breast cancer prevention drug, then only this many will get breast cancer".  But do we know which women can expect to benefit?  The answer is, with personalizes medicine,  YES!  


I will review some advantages of the personalized approach to breast cancer prevention.  We know that everyone benefits from being lean, from regular exercise, and from being active.  Personalized breast cancer prevention is more.  


There are several advantages to both the individual and the common good.  As we learn to treat each person as unique, the population as a whole also benefits.


Some of the advantages of personalized medicine include:

• focus on prevention and disease prediction
• earlier intervention in the disease process
• higher likelihood of desired outcome (success)
• more informed decisions 
• decrease in negative effects
• healthier population, one by one
• reduced healthcare costs

Not just treatment for the "sick" person but intervention offered before the disease occurs so that it may never occur.




We will review items in the personal history and tests that may help us in our quest to prevent breast cancer, beginning tomorrow.






Together we can prevent 75,000 breast cancer cases!