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Precision Medicine and its Imprecise History

Precision Medicine and its Imprecise History

February 4, 2020

Precision Medicine and its Imprecise History

The origins of precision medicine are not precisely known. That’s due in no small part to ongoing confusion about what precision medicine is. Confusion over the boundaries of a new scientific paradigm shouldn’t surprise anyone, but even the basic terminology isn’t clear in this case. What’s the relationship of precision medicine to personalized medicine? What distinction, if any, is being made with evidence-based medicine? Haven’t clinicians always striven to provide precise recommendations? As a systematic survey recently concluded, whether called precision medicine or personalized medicine, the phrase has come to refer to the way personal data and biomarkers—particularly genetic biomarkers—might be used to tailor treatments for individual patients (Schleidgen, Klingler, Bertram, Rogowski, & Marckmann, 2013). Nothing in this definition signals what’s new about precision medicine, however—genetic information and other patient data have long been used to advance medical research and improve treatments. Only by delving deeper into what precision medicine has meant over time might we understand what’s actually new about the age-old attempt to move from individual and seemingly idiosyncratic patient outcomes to generalizable knowledge about health and disease, and the crucial role statisticians have historically played in that process.

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