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Personalized medicine: are we there yet?

The Pharmacogenomics Journal volume 9, page 85 (2009)Cite this article

The goal of personalized medicine is to utilize a person's genetic makeup for appropriate disease diagnosis and treatment; an idea conceptualized in the era of Human Genome Project.1 That great feat has spurned many onlookers with business acumen to seek commercial gains by offering to decipher the genome of individuals for a fee. The fast rate at which these startup companies have become popular gives the public the impression that the science is moving at equal pace. However, that is not true. These personalized medicine companies say they are merely providing ‘information’ about an individual's health/disease risk. However, save for a handful of monogenic diseases, there is not yet scientific consensus on the risk factors for more common complex diseases such as heart disease and cancer.2, 3 Yet for a $1000 or more, one can submit a DNA sample to be sequenced by these companies and a report is sent back with a disease risk assessment.4

In the case where there is no risk for disease, an individual may not feel all that concerned about having performed this test. However, in the case where there may be some disease risk as assessed by these companies, what should the individual do? Some may go to their doctors with these test results and ask them what they mean. Is it the job of a physician or any other health care provider to decipher a test result they did not order? Should this onus not be on the company? Echoing these sentiments, the SF Chronicle reported that California and New York have suspended the sales of DNA testing startup companies due to concerns over the accuracy of the test results.5 The News article is timely and sheds light on the emerging issues that may plague the eventual acceptance and adoption of personalized medicine. With the passing of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) last month, after 13 years in consideration, the fears surrounding the use or misuse of genetic information in medicine were allayed.6 Although it is a huge step forward, GINA only addresses one of the many barriers or challenges of actually implementing personalized medicine in practice. Some of the other barriers to implementation are lack of scientific evidence and education.

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References

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  1. Department of Clinical Pharmacy, School of Pharmacy, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA

    O N Ikediobi

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Ikediobi, O. Personalized medicine: are we there yet?. Pharmacogenomics J 9, 85 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/tpj.2008.12

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