Oncology is a field of medicine dealing with the recognition and treatment of cancer diseases. Personalised medicine, on the other hand, is a concept based on understanding the differences between patients suffering from the same disease and, at the same time, learning about the complexity of diseases. The application of this concept allowed for the creation of a new generation of targeted drugs.
Over the years, and despite the enormous experience gained by laboratories and doctors, unfortunately, a large percentage of people still suffer from diseases, often fatal ones. Each of us is different, has different needs and priorities, and also experiences and endures diseases differently. So does it make sense to treat everyone with the same, imposed method and previously selected medicines?
Organisms have a fully individual and unique DNA code in which everything is contained. It refers to the structure and functioning of the whole organism, and its examination makes it possible to predict with a high degree of probability what a person may become ill with in the future. Despite this uniqueness of DNA, the information it contains can change during its life. Sometimes the DNA repair mechanisms fail and the body is unable to cope with the displacement of the disease. Examples are diseases, the formation and development of which is the result of specific damage to genetic material in cells of specific tissues or organs.
When we start to become seriously ill, the treatment we provide for can be effective to varying degrees. This depends on the individual characteristics of the patient or his or her cancer. Research shows that therapy against one type of cancer can provide diametrically different answers in different patients. It can be both effective and harmful. In traditional medicine, standardisation, classification of diseases and their symptoms as homogenous and similar or identical treatments have long been used. With the development of medicine, knowledge is acquired that allows us to see the truth. It shows that many diseases, especially cancer, depend on changes in the genome, mutation, rearrangement and fusion of genes. Oncologically personalized medicine deals with precisely such examinations, which make it possible to determine the type of treatment, the so-called targeted treatment, adapted to the patient and the diagnosed cancer. This concept makes it possible to have a positive impact on the effectiveness of treatment, as its function is to detect a problem and find a way to fix it. In this way, you don’t need too much time to take the right steps to save the patient.
In summary, personalised medicine is a range of medical interventions tailored to the individual patient, the determination of his or her chosen biological characteristics and the use of medicines and other medical procedures. In this way, targeted treatment has a much greater and faster effect on the fight against the disease.
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Personalized medicine in oncology
