Lost in Translation

Abstract

The era of precision medicine and biomarkers is here. Medical science and research on biomarkers have made enormous improvements in medical care for cancer patients, improvements that are highly valuable to patients and their caregivers as well as prestige for medical scientists and the pharmaceutical industry. But do these improvements lead to “good health” for cancer patients? “Good health” is one of the most important things in life, but what is the meaning of “good health” today, how do we talk about health, who is declaring a status of ‘good health’, do modern medicine have limitations in being able to declare ‘good health’, and by which perspectives are “good health” declared? These are all relevant questions to ask when defining and framing health, disease and illness in the era of precision medicine.Ovarian cancer is a serious and highly lethal disease. The different perspectives of health, disease and illness affects the physician-patient relationship and eventually the decision-making. The rapid progress in biomedicine demands knowledge and understanding, but are physicians and cancer patients living in the same world, understanding the same language, or are they all lost in the translation when communicating and understanding illness, disease and above all – health?