How to Integrate Personalized Medicine into Prevention? Recommendations from the Personalized Prevention of Chronic Diseases (PRECeDI) Consortium

Abstract

Medical practitioners are increasingly adopting a personalized medicine (PM) approach involving individually tailored patient care. The Personalized Prevention of Chronic Diseases (PRECeDI) consortium project, funded within the Marie Skłodowska Curie Action (MSCA) Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE) scheme, had fostered collaboration on PM research and training with special emphasis on the prevention of chronic diseases. From 2014 to 2018, the PRECeDI consortium trained 50 staff members on personalized prevention of chronic diseases through training and research. The acquisition of skills from researchers came from dedicated secondments from academic and nonacademic institutions aimed at training on several research topics related to personalized prevention of cancer and cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases. In detail, 5 research domains were addressed: (1) identification and validation of biomarkers for the primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases, secondary prevention of Alzheimer disease, and tertiary prevention of head and neck cancer; (2) economic evaluation of genomic applications; (3) ethical-legal and policy issues surrounding PM; (4) sociotechnical analysis of the pros and cons of informing healthy individuals on their genome; and (5) identification of organizational models for the provision of predictive genetic testing. Based on the results of the research carried out by the PRECeDI consortium, in November 2018, a set of recommendations for policy makers, scientists, and industry has been issued, with the main goal to foster the integration of PM approaches in the field of chronic disease prevention.

Genomics knowledge and attitudes among European public health professionals: Results of a cross-sectional survey

“…Communication and training needs have been also identified as key challenges in the implementation of PM by the European PerMed Consortium [35], while the PRECeDI consortiuum added among its recommendations the training of. of clinical and public health professionals should be promoted with the aim of reducing inappropriate use in healthcare [36].…”

“…It seems clear from these findings, therefore, that greater knowledge of genomics and personalized medicine among health professionals not directly involved in genetics would improve the capacity of health systems to incorporate new genomic technologies [11][12][13][14]35]. Increasing PH capability in genomics could also help to avoid uncontrolled implementation of technologies without proven benefits, which can lead to inappropriate management of patients, detrimental effects on patient health, and waste of financial resources [36]. Our results are in line with the findings of two surveys on the genomics knowledge and attitudes of PH educators conducted respectively in Italy and the US [22,45], showing that knowledge is a significant predictor of positive attitudes towards the use of genetic testing and the delivery of genetic services in PH.…”

THE FUTURE OF MEDICINE, healthcare innovation through precision medicine: policy case study of Qatar

“…Nowadays, there is a tendency towards moving away from the “ one test, one drug ” model that has defined companion diagnostics to utilize biomarker panels. There is also an expectation that this may lead to better targeting of preventive interventions by defining the disease and targeting the treatment based on a person’s molecular pathology (Boccia et al 2019 ).…”

Prevention of vitamin D deficiency improves population health, social inequalities and health care budgets

“…3 More than 10 years later, however, we are still struggling to collect high quality evidences on the efficacy, effectiveness and efficiency of personalized approaches in prevention, ideally in the context of broad Health Technology Assessment evaluations. 4 Additionally, we need to engage public health professionals. In 2018, some scientists argued that whereas public health starts with populations, the word 'precision' or personalized implies a concern only with individuals.…”

“…A recent economic evaluation found that fortifying wheat flour with vitamin D in England and Wales would prevent 10 million new cases and save the National Health Services' budget £65 million. 4 Adding flour fortification to the current policy was found to be…”